Applying the General-to-Specific modelling on World Bank Enterprise Survey data for 266 economies, this paper models five performance indicators based on 80 potential factors derived from firm characteristics, finance, informality, infrastructure, innovation, technology, regulation, taxes, trade and workforce concerning small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We find that the factors vary regarding statistical significance and magnitude between small and medium enterprises. For example, the percent of firms using e-mail to interact with clients/suppliers has a positive effect on the annual employment growth of medium enterprises, but not the case of small enterprises. The proportion of investments financed by equity or stock sales has an adverse impact on small enterprises, while there is no such effect on medium enterprises. We find that more drivers explained the annual employment growth and the percent of firms buying fixed assets compared to capacity utilization, annual labor productivity growth, and real annual sales growth.

Sustainability trends present risks and opportunities for companies and various stakeholders. Profits can be derived from doing good: Islamic sustainability equity in vesting offers competitive risk-return profiles at the levels of individual asset and portfolio of global assets particularly during economic expansion, equity bullish and subprime crisis periods. Islamic finance industry should proactively drive main stream sustainability investing.

Despite the promising evidence of the corporate social and environmental performance-corporate financial performance relations across various business sectors, the findings from banking sector remain limited and inconclusive. This article examines the impact of access to finance and environmental financing on the financial performance of the banking sector globally. Based on cross-sectional linear regression and non-linear threshold regression of 713 banks from 75 countries over the period of 2013-2015, we find that access to finance has significantly positive effects on banks' financial performance in most of the estimation models controlling for both bank specific and macroeconomic variables. The positive impact on financial performance is channelled through loan growth (in both cases) and management quality (in the case of access to finance). We find that banks with total assets of lower than USD 2.07 billion experience significantly positive impact of access to finance on their ROE. Policy implications toward policy and regulatory development in the banking sector are discussed.

This study assesses the role of gold, crude oil and cryptocurrency as a safe haven for traditional, sustainable, and Islamic investors during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Using Wavelet coherence analysis and spillover index methodologies in bivariate and multivariate settings, this study examines the correlation of these assets for different investment horizons. The findings suggest that gold, oil and bitcoin exhibited low coherency with each stock index across almost all considered investment horizons until the onset of the COVID-19. Conversely, with the outbreak of the pandemic, the return spillover is more intense across financial assets, and a significant pairwise return connectedness between each equity index and hedging asset is observed. Hence, gold, oil, and bitcoin do not exhibit safe-haven characteristics. However, by decomposing the time-varying co-movements into different investment horizons, we find that total and pairwise connectedness among the assets are primarily driven by a higher-frequency band (up to 4 days). It indicates that investors have diversification opportunities with gold, oil, and bitcoin at longer horizons. The results are robust over different types of equity investors (traditional, sustainable, and Islamic) and various investment horizons.

Almost every second barrel of oil is produced in the OIC region. It is expected that the influx of oil revenue will help in developing the financial markets and the economies of these countries. So, the accelerated growth of Islamic financial industry at a double-digit rate annually has been attributed to the liquidity generated from the oil production. However, the recent adverse shocks emanating from the international oil market (quadruple drop in oil price) have cast scepticism about the sustainability of financial sectors in OIC oil-producing countries in general and the growth of Islamic banking industry, in particular. Slumping oil prices are expected to reduce the liquidity ...

Have commodities and equity become a "financialized market of one"? Is such oneness persistent? Do diversification benefits still exist? Evidence behind these enquiries offers important insights for policymakers, governments, traders and investors, and constitutes the main motivation for this paper. To assess the viability of commodities as an alternative asset class for Islamic equity investors, we present evidence on the extent to which returns in commodities and Islamic equity markets move in sync in both time and frequency domains. Our findings reveal that, throughout the January 1999 - April 2015 period, correlations between commodities and Islamic equity were highly volatile and time sensitive. While there had been minimal correlation between commodities and Islamic equity prior to 2008, the relationship has strengthened since 2008, possibly attributed to the anomaly arising from the global financial crisis. Trends in the recent two years, however, suggest that the links between commodities and Islamic equity are heading towards their pre-crisis equilibrium, offering again potential diversification opportunities for investors. Divergence in correlations reveals that the behaviour of commodities is heterogeneous with varying potentials for diversification. Overall, gold, natural gas, soft commodities, grains and livestock are better portfolio diversifiers than oil and other metals. Relative to medium to long term investors, short-term investors gained better diversification benefits in most commodities during bullish, bearish and market recovery periods.

This paper investigates whether commodities offer potential diversification benefits for Islamic equity index investors in light of possible financialization of commodity markets. Using MGARCH-DCC and Wavelet Coherence analyses, our findings reveal that correlations between commodity markets and the Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index are time-varying and highly volatile throughout the January 1999 - April 2015 period. A substantial and persistent increase was observed in the return correlations between commodities and Islamic equity at the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. However, trends in the recent two years suggest that this association is heading towards its pre-crisis levels, offering again diversification benefits for Islamic equity holders. These benefits vary across different commodities in various time scales. Overall, gold, natural gas, soft commodities, grains and livestock are better portfolio diversifiers than oil and other metals. Relative to medium-to-long term investors, short-term investors (less than 32 days horizon) gained better diversification benefits in most commodities during bullish, bearish and market recovery periods. These findings have implications for investors who are heterogeneous in risk tolerance and time preference as well as for policymakers who are concerned with market stability.

The emergence of COVID-19 in late 2019 rapidly shattered the Asia-Pacific region (APR), a bastion of economic dynamism, and it became the epicenter of the global health crisis. This unprecedented pandemic not only triggered a public health catastrophe but also unleashed a financial storm, exposing vulnerability within the region's interconnected economies. This study identifies the factors driving volatility spillovers within Asian-Pacific financial markets during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (January 2020-February 2021). We analyze the interplay of pandemic transmission dynamics, government interventions, central bank policies, and socioeconomic variables. Our findings reveal a robust and persistent association between the rising number of COVID-19 cases per million and volatility spillovers. We introduce three novel determinants - the number of intensive care unit beds, population density, and the proportion of the elderly population - which significantly impact volatility transmission in response to new cases. Stringent government measures, such as travel bans and lockdowns, mitigate volatility spillovers. Conversely, central bank policies increase volatility spillovers. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of financial market dynamics in the context of global health emergencies. This knowledge equips policy makers in the APR with valuable tools for navigating future crises.

Enviroment, social and governance sustainability ("ESG"), typically considered as intangibles, can be explained by tangible factors such as banks' fundamentals, country ESG score, macroeconomic factors and institutional quality.