Variables definition and measurement
| Variable name | Abbreviation | Definition/Measurement | Expected relationship |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dependent variables | |||
| Financial sustainability | FSS | Total financial income divided by the sum of financial and operating expenses Yitayaw (2021) | |
| Leverage | LEV | Ratio of total debt to total equity | |
| Independent firm-specific variables | |||
| Persistency | L.FSS, L.LEV | Lagged values of dependent variables | + |
| Management efficiency | CI | Ratio of operational expenditures to operational income (Chowdhury et al., 2017) | − (FSS), + (LEV) |
| Liquidity | LIQ | Ratio of liquid assets to short-term deposits (Boateng et al., 2022; Faizulayev et al., 2020) | + (FSS), − (LEV) |
| Firm size | LTA | Natural logarithm of total assets (Boateng et al., 2022; Tleugaliyev et al., 2025) | + (FSS), − (LEV) |
| Asset quality | ASQLNPL | Non-performing loans ratio (Laryea et al., 2016) | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Effective tax rate | Tax | Natural logarithm of tax payments (Doğan, 2013) | − (FSS)/mixed (LEV) |
| Dividend payout policy | DIV | Dividend payments as a proportion of net income (Khan et al., 2017) | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Independent macroeconomic variables | |||
| Gross domestic product growth | GDPGrowth | Annual percentage growth in GDP (Damira et al., 2022) | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Time dummies | Time 2020 | Dummy variable for COVID-19 period (1 for 2020–2021, 0 otherwise) | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Unemployment | Unempl | National unemployment rate (Serkbayeva et al., 2024) | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Energy intensity | Energyintensity | Proxy for environmental concerns (energy consumption per unit of GDP) | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Government effectiveness | GovEff | Governance effectiveness index | + (FSS, LEV) |
| FinTech measure | Fintech | Number of Internet users to population of a country as a percentage | + (FSS, LEV) |
| Variable name | Abbreviation | Definition/Measurement | Expected relationship |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial sustainability | FSS | Total financial income divided by the sum of financial and operating expenses | |
| Leverage | LEV | Ratio of total debt to total equity | |
| Persistency | L.FSS, L.LEV | Lagged values of dependent variables | + |
| Management efficiency | CI | Ratio of operational expenditures to operational income ( | − (FSS), + (LEV) |
| Liquidity | LIQ | Ratio of liquid assets to short-term deposits ( | + (FSS), − (LEV) |
| Firm size | LTA | Natural logarithm of total assets ( | + (FSS), − (LEV) |
| Asset quality | ASQLNPL | Non-performing loans ratio ( | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Effective tax rate | Tax | Natural logarithm of tax payments ( | − (FSS)/mixed (LEV) |
| Dividend payout policy | DIV | Dividend payments as a proportion of net income ( | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Gross domestic product growth | GDPGrowth | Annual percentage growth in GDP ( | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Time dummies | Time 2020 | Dummy variable for COVID-19 period (1 for 2020–2021, 0 otherwise) | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Unemployment | Unempl | National unemployment rate ( | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Energy intensity | Energyintensity | Proxy for environmental concerns (energy consumption per unit of GDP) | − (FSS, LEV) |
| Government effectiveness | GovEff | Governance effectiveness index | + (FSS, LEV) |
| FinTech measure | Fintech | Number of Internet users to population of a country as a percentage | + (FSS, LEV) |
Source(s): Author’s own work
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