An efficient market has been theoretically proven to be a key component for effective and efficient resource allocation in an economy. This paper incorporates econophysics with Efficient Market Hypothesis to undertake a comparative analysis of Islamic and developed countries’ markets by extending the understanding of their multifractal nature. By applying the Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MFDFA) we calculated the generalized Hurst exponents, multifractal scaling exponents and generalized multifractal dimensions for 22 broad market indices. The findings provide a deeper understanding of the markets in Islamic countries, where they have traces of highly efficient performance particularly in crisis periods. A key finding is the empirical evidence of the impact of the ‘stage of market development’ on the efficiency of the market. If Islamic countries aim to improve the efficiency of resource allocation, an important area to address is to focus, among others, on enhancing the stage of market development

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the rate of interest on the key instrument of monetary policy in Australia, the overnight cash rate and the debt instruments comprising the Australian Government Yield curve, during the climate of low inflation and transparent monetary policy in Australia since the early 1990s. This relationship is fitted to an Expectations Theory based function. The methods applied are the error-correction and variance decompositions techniques including the most recently developed ‘long run structural modelling’ (Pesaran and Shin, 2002). The findings indicate that, contrary to common belief, longer-term interest rates more often than not tend to lead the cash rate and other shorterterm rates. Australian monetary policy relies on the assertion that the shorter term rate leads the longer term rates, and that changes in the cash rate will reverberate through the yield curve to the longer term rates, which in turn affect aggregate demand and other economic indicators. The findings of our study based on the recent rigorous time-series techniques tend to cast doubts on the efficiency and effectiveness of current monetary policy in Australia.

The derivatives markets in the Asian region have shown significant growth and development since their inception. Similarly, derivatives market in Malaysia and Bursa Malaysia Derivatives have experienced remarkable changes and developments. This study focuses mainly on the stock index futures contract (FKLI) and its relationship with the underlying spot index (FBM KLCI). The FKLI is chosen instead of other permissible futures due to availability of the data and its relevance in the context of fund managers' asset allocation strategy. The FKLI is chosen instead of other permissible futures due to availability of the data and its relevance in the context of fund managers’ asset allocation strategy. Mainly based on intraday data, this study makes an analysis of issues on pricing efficiency, the expiration-day effects on volume and volatility, the lead lag relationship between stock index and stock index futures, in Malaysian derivatives market as a newly advanced emerging market. Based on the underlying assumption that if a mispricing were to arise, unlimited arbitrage trading would trigger the market price back to its theoretical fair value and hedging effectiveness may go down as a result of pricing inefficiency, the first essay investigates the study of pricing efficiency specifically on the extent of mispricing by contract, evolution of mispricing, and mispricing episodes. Daily data based on the cost-of-carry model and 15-minute intraday data based on the basis model are used to address the issue of pricing efficiency. This essay fills the gap by introducing 15-minute intraday data, in addition to a larger time span of daily data. The results show variations in mispricing over time under study and provide valuable information for policymakers and fund managers as the Malaysia markets become more efficient and seem to provide a better avenue to hedge their positions and protect their investment values.

The main purpose of the study is: i. to examine the long- and short-term dynamic linkages among international and Asian emerging stock markets and then ii. try to quantify the extent of the Asian stock market fluctuations which are explained by intra-regional contagion effect. The study, therefore, proceeds first by examining the dynamic causal linkages among eight national daily stock price indices four major established markets and four Asian emerging markets. and then quantifying the extent of their dynamic interdependencies through the application of recent time-series econometric techniques a. vector error-correction model Toda and Phillips, 1993. and b. level VAR model containing integrated and cointegrated processes of arbitrary orders Toda and Yamamoto, 1995. At the global level, the findings tend to confirm the widely-held view of the leadership of the US over both the short- and long-term and the existence of a significant short- and long-term relationship between the established OECD and the emerging Asian markets

This study attempts to investigate the issue of integration of Islamic equity markets (i) not only whether these markets are moving together or not (ii) but also whether the permanent and temporary components of these markets are moving together or not. Our evidence tends to indicate that these selected Islamic markets are bound together by one cointegrating relationship with the Euro zone Islamic equity market being the most leading one and the U.K. Islamic equity market being the follower. Beveridge-Nelson (BN) time series decomposition analysis reinforces the integration by indicating that both the permanent and transitory components of all these Islamic equity indices tend to move almost together leading to further integration of the Islamic equity markets. Finally, the study tends to suggest that the financial crises did affect the investments in Islamic Equity markets. The findings of this study are also consistent with the Shariah views of economic and financial integration and have strong policy implications.

This article makes an attempt to test the possible directions of causality between financial development and economic growth, which were labelled by Patrick (1966) as the supply-leading and demand-following hypothesis. Saudi Arabia is taken as a case study. The methods applied are the error correction and variance decompositions techniques including the most recently developed ‘long-run structural modelling (LRSM)’ (Pesaran and Shin, 2002), which by imposing exactly identifying and overidentifying restrictions on the cointegrating vector has taken care of a major limitation of the conventional cointegrating estimates in that they were atheoretical in nature. To the best of our knowledge, there has not been any study on this issue with the application of the techniques that incorporate ‘LRSM’. The stability of the functions has also been tested by Cumulative Sum (CUSUM), Cumulative Sum of Squares (CUSUMSQ) and Chow Test (CHOW) tests. Our findings, based on the above mentioned rigorous techniques, tend to suggest that the direction of causation between financial development and economic growth is supply-leading (rather than demand–following), as expected at the early stage of development. These findings have clear policy implications in that a pro-active policy of growth and reform of the financial sector will help enhance economic growth in an open developing economy like Saudi Arabia.

This paper investigates the dynamic causal linkages in the daily returns among four conventional and three Shariah compliant indices (such as, Financial Times Stock Exchange Shariah China Index, Asia Shariah Index, Malaysia EMAS Shariah Index, China Shanghai Stock Exchange [SSE] Composite Index, Hang Seng Index, Nikkei 225 and KOSPI) in Asia region through the application of the standard time series techniques. Essentially, the purpose of this research is to identify the extent of influence of conventional and Islamic, regional and international equity markets on Shariah-compliant equity investment in China. Our study is focused on investigating the following empirical questions: (i) Which indices do the Shariah China Index commove with? (ii) Which indices is the Shariah China Index Granger-causally related with? and (iii) Which major stock index was driving the selective conventional and Shariah-compliant stock indices? Our findings tend to suggest: (i) The Shariah China Index appears to have a theoretical and long-run comovement with all the select conventional and Shariah-compliant stock indices (as evidenced in the Cointegration and LRSM tests) (ii) The Shariah China Index is Granger-caused by all the conventional and Shariah-compliant stock indices (as evidenced in the vector error correction modelling tests) (iii) Finally, what stands out is the leadership of the China conventional SSE market followed by the Malaysia Shariah market in driving all indices including the Shariah China Index (as evidenced in the VDCs tests).

This study constructs active Islamic portfolios using a multi-style rotation strategy, derived from the three prominent styles, namely, momentum, value, and quality investing. We use the stocks that are consistently listed in the U.S. Dow Jones Islamic index for a sample period from 1996 to 2012. We also include two macroeconomic mimicking portfolios to capture the premiums of industrial production growth and inflation innovation, accommodating the economic regime shifts. Based on the information coefficients, we find the six-month momentum and the fractal measure as momentum factors; the enterprise yield (gross profit/TEV) and the book to market ratio as valuation factors; the gross profit to total assets, the return on capital, and the scaled total accruals as quality factors. We further construct active portfolios using the augmented Black Litterman (ABL) factor model to avoid the factor alignment problem, with the factor views predicted using Markov Switching VAR, MIDAS, and Bayesian Model Averaging. The out-of-sample performance of our portfolios can produce information ratios of 0.7–0.8 over the composite indices, and information ratios of 0.42–0.48 over the style indices, with the annualized alphas of 10–11%. Even when we put the constrained tracking error of 1% over the benchmark, our portfolios still produce information ratios of 0.9–1.2 before transaction costs, and 0.6–0.8 after transaction costs. We provide intuitive explanations for each premium changing over time, and suggest the promising strategy for Islamic equity investors to outperform the market.

It is demonstrated how the techniques of unit root testing and cointegration may be used to test for common stochastic trends, and their implications for addressing the market efficiency hypothesis (MEH) in a multivariate context within a seven-variable system of major daily (unpublished) spot exchange rates of the Malaysian ringgit. Finding the evidence of two cointegrating vectors, a vector error-correction model is developed to test for the direction of temporal causal dynamics (in the Gratiger sense) within this system before investigating the relative strength of the causality by decomposing the total impact of an unanticipated shock to each of the variables beyond the sample period, into proportions attributable to shocks in the other variables including its own. Results from the analysis tend to suggest a violation of the MEH in a speculative sense, due to the presence of two cointegrating vectors which also withstood the temporal instability test.

The patterns of dynamic linkages are examined among national stock prices of four Asian Newly Industrializing Countries stock markets - Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong - in models incorporating the established markets of Japan, USA, UK and Germany. Recent time-series techniques are employed, including unit root testing, multivariate cointegration, vector error-correction modelling (VECM), forecast error variance decomposition (VDC) and impulse response functions (IRFs). The results consistently appear to suggest the relatively leading role of all established markets in driving fluctuations in the NIC stock markets. In other words, all established markets and Hong Kong, consistently were the initial receptors of exogenous shocks to the (long-term) equilibrium relationships and the other NIC markets, particularly the Singaporean and Taiwanese markets had to bearmost of the burden of short-run adjustment to re-establish the long-termequilibriumrelationship. In comparison to all other NIC markets, Taiwan and Singapore appear as the most endogenous, with Taiwan providing evidence of its short-term vulnerability to shocks from the established markets.

On the backdrop of growing importance of Shariah compliant equity markets, the purpose of this paper is to study cross-country portfolio diversification benefits for investors with major trading partners of Saudi Arabia, namely, USA, China, Japan, Germany and India, who have already invested or tend to invest in Saudi Arabian stock market. The authors have investigated time invariant, dynamic correlations at different investments horizons of the investors among Islamic asset classes by applying relevant econometric techniques like multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic - DCC and continuous wavelet transforms. For robustness, this study also applied maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform. The findings tend to indicate that the Saudi Arabian investors have portfolio diversification benefits with all major trading partners in the short-term investment horizon. Interestingly, Saudi Arabian market has the least portfolio diversification benefits with the Chinese market. However, in the long run, all markets are correlated, yielding minimum portfolio diversification benefits and most importantly Saudi Arabian investors have portfolio diversification benefits with the Indian Islamic equity market in almost all investment horizons. The findings are highly consistent across different econometric technique estimations.

The last decade has witnessed a rapid expansion of Islamic financial instruments with a notable proliferation of Islamic investment certificates called sukuk. In spite of the expansion, research to appraise their growth implications remains limited. This paper investigated the structural differences within sukuk and conventional and their implications on investor return reactions. It also looked at the investors' different decision making time horizon dimensions in response to the respective debt security's announcement. Our sample consisted of 158 conventional bonds and 129 sukuk issuers between 2000 and 2013. Event-study methodology and wavelet analysis were used resulting in three major findings. Firstly, market investors perceived sukuk and conventional bonds as different financial instruments. Variations in investor reactions persisted when each sub-category of sukuk and conventional bond were examined separately. Lastly, firm value and shareholder wealth were affected in different ways upon the issuance announcement of of a specific sukuk or conventional bond. Specifically, the equity-like features within convertible bonds and partnership-based sukuk negated institutional investors' wealth, but were due to different 'dilution' arguments. Sukuk created unique wealth effects for corporate issuers, day traders and institutional investors in comparison with conventional bonds.

Many Muslim individual and institutional investors seek to invest only in stocks that are compliant with the Shari'ah (i.e. Islamic law). Among others, Dow Jones addressed this demand and has developed their proprietary screening methodologies to identify Shari'ah compliant firms (SC). One key factor that distinguishes SC firms from their non-compliant peers (SNC) is that the former is not allowed to cross the leverage threshold of 33%. Due to the restrictions imposed on them, it is expected that SC firms exhibit different capital structure compared to the SNC firms. The purpose of this initial comparative study is to analyze the most reliable debt determinants identified in the literature on both firm types. This study utilizes static panel data techniques on the sample consisting of SC and SNC firms from 7 countries and 7 industries over the years 2004-2014. Our study is inconclusive and it shows that most of the determinants do exhibit different effects among both firm types. Depending on the leverage measure, the effect of different independent variables on firms' capital structure varies. A uniform effect can be exerted for debt determinants profitability for both leverage measures, and growth opportunities, firm size and tangibility for market leverage only. Our robustness tests reveal that the impact of some debt determinants on firms leverage remains consistent. The coefficient sign and significance suggests, that the capital structure decision of both firm types, both are better explained by the Pecking Order Theory for book and by the Trade-Off Theory for market leverage, respectively.

Sukuk is dominating the Malaysian capital market with strong support from the government, mega-conglomerates and firms. As an important source of firms' financing, sukuk is increasingly catching up with existing conventional debt in terms of transaction volume and the number of deals. In spite of the rising interest among issuers in sukuk offers, research to appraise firm's issuance motives and the subsequent effects on shareholders' wealth upon sukuk and conventional bond announcement remains limited. Hence, through this initial study, firstly, we examine the association of firm specific characteristics with the respective debt security principles offers. Secondly, we also investigate the impact of each debt security offer announcement on issuer overall shareholders’ wealth effects. To address the first issue, we employed the dynamic GMM (both difference and system) analyses for testing the “partial adjustment model” with a view to investigating whether firms maintain an optimal target debt ratio when issuing each debt security principles, consistent with the trade-off theory key predictions. We also used the same model to examine the firm’s specific determinants of target debt ratio in an integrated approach. To address the second issue, we adopt both, “event-study” methodology and “wavelet” analysis. The aim is to examine the true dynamics of relationship between the debt security announcement and the shareholders’ wealth effects, given multi-horizon nature of investors.

We provide a new contribution to trading strategies by using multi-fractal de-trended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA), imported from econophysics, to complement various momentum strategies. The method provides a single measure that can capture both persistency and anti-persistency in stock prices, accounting for multifractality. This study uses a sample of Islamic stocks listed in the U.S. Dow Jones Islamic market for a sample period covering 16 years starting in 1996. The findings show that the MF-DFA strategy produces monthly excess returns of 6.12%, outperforming other various momentum strategies. Even though the risk of the MF-DFA strategy may be relatively higher, it can still produce a Sharpe ratio of 0.164, which is substantially higher than that of the other strategies. When we control for the MF-DFA factor with the other factors, its pure factor return is still able to yield a monthly excess return of 1.35%. Finally, we combine the momentum and MF-DFA strategies, with the proportions of 90/10, 80/20, and 70/30 and by doing so we demonstrate that the MF-DFA measure can boost the total monthly excess returns as well as Sharpe ratio. The value added is non-linear which implies that the additional returns are associated with lower incremental risk

This paper is an humble attempt to add value to the existing literature by empirically testing the "time-varying" and "scale dependent" volatilities of and correlations of the sample commodities. Particularly, by incorporating scale dependence, it is able to identify unique portfolio diversification opportunities for different set of investors bearing different investment horizons or holding periods. In order to address the research objectives, we have applied the vector error-correction test and several recently introduced econometric techniques such as the Maximum Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform (MODWT), Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) and Multivariate GARCH - Dynamic Conditional Correlation. The data used in this paper is the daily data of seven commodities (crude oil, gas, gold, silver, copper, soybean and corn) prices from 1 January 2007 until 31 December 2013. Our findings tend to suggest that there is a theoretical relationship between the sample commodities (as evidenced in the cointegration tests) and that the crude oil, gas, gold and copper variables are leading the other commodities (as evidenced in the Vector Error-Correction models).

This article makes an initial attempt to study the hedging effectiveness of Islamic stock returns against inflation for different investment horizons. We applied the wavelet analysis to measure the cross-correlations between the time series as a function of time-scales using data ranging from 2007 to early 2015. The main results tend to indicate the following: First, that for investment horizons not exceeding 3 years, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Emas Shariah Index constituent returns may potentially hedge against inflation. Additionally, the hedging ability of stock returns was absent from 2008 to 2009 following the global financial crisis. Finally, a buy-and-hold strategy exceeding 3 years may erode investments. The results are plausible and have strong policy implications.

There is a critical gap in literature in studying the portfolio diversification opportunities available to sukuk investors and evaluating these in the light of held-to-maturity strategies usually adopted by these investors. This paper has made an initial attempt to study the portfolio diversification strategies for sukuk portfolios across heterogeneous investment horizons. Our findings critically indicate that returns between local currency sukuk in different markets generally have low levels of correlations across different investor holding periods, thus enabling both short and long-run portfolio diversification benefits. However, in contrast, international currency sukuk issued in different markets exhibit high levels of correlations in the longer-term investor holding periods. Also in the domestic market context, returns on different classes of domestic sukuk are found to exhibit strong correlations in the longer-holding periods. Our findings critically highlight the feasibility of held-to-maturity sukuk investment strategies from a portfolio diversification perspective.

This study examines the impact of foreign aid on the institutional quality (IQ) of the OIC countries. Using the data of OIC countries for the three-year average period from 1991 to 2016, the system GMM finds that aid in general deteriorates the IQ for the aid recipient countries. However, quantile regression suggests that the negative impact of foreign aid on institutional quality (IQ) is relatively greater in the countries where the existing quality of institution is poor. The findings of the study suggest that improving the existing capacity is essential for reaping the optimum benefit of foreign aid on institutional development.

Recent literature draws attention to the issue of whether heterogeneity in investment horizons has an effect on resulting investor exposures. In this article, using Malaysia as a case study, we make the first attempt to examine comovement dynamics of Islamic equity returns to identify international portfolio diversification opportunities for investors having heterogeneous investment horizons. We use three recent and appropriate methodologies: M-GARCH-DCC, Continuous Wavelet Transforms (CWT), and Maximum Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform (MODWT). The results significantly tend to indicate that effective portfolio diversification opportunities between our sample markets exist mainly for short holding periods while for longer investment horizons, where investor stockholding periods exceed one year, the markets appear to be mostly highly correlated yielding minimal portfolio diversification benefits. Overall, the results critically highlight the significance of heterogeneity in investment horizons and bear important implications for portfolio diversification strategies

This study embodies a preliminary endeavour at analysing the impact of leverage on portfolio behaviour, with specific reference to return and volatility, in the European stock markets, using the debt ratio as one of the important benchmarks for Islamic stock screening. Given the focus of Islamic stock screening on the debt ratio, we use data from 320 firms for eight European countries which were classified according to their level of debt and size. For this, the portfolio optimisation based Mean-Variance Efficient Frontier (MVEF), the Sharpe Ratio and the Capital Market Line (CML) were employed. Our findings tend to demonstrate that, under shocks, high leverage worsens the portfolio return, volatility, and value at risk. The results further point out that optimal portfolio composition is obtained through a high proportion of low debt funds in the case of two separate equity funds, of low debt and high debt portfolios respectively. The systematic risk of several portfolio strategies is further explored with regards to a benchmark of European index and market-wide, return and volatility shocks.