We measure the impact of competition and institutional quality on stability for dual banking economies. Our sample comprises 492 banks (109 Islamic and 383 conventional banks) from 17 countries with dual-banking systems. The sample period is from 2005 to 2020. The estimations are performed using Two Step System Generalized Method of Moments approach. Our findings reveal heterogeneous effect of competition on stability. We found the evidence of competition-stability paradigm in case of full sample as well as for Islamic banks. There is no effect of competition on the stability of conventional banks. Furthermore, there is no evidence of size effect in the competition-stability results. The impact of legal institution is insignificant. We also observe that better quality of political and the economic institutions increases the bank stability. We attribute these findings to the conjecture that better political and/or legal institutions improve bank stability by reducing information asymmetry and adverse selection. Finally, we find the evidence that political, legal and economic dimensions of institutions have differential effect on competition-stability relationship. The findings are robust to alternative definitions of competition, stability and different methodological approaches.

This paper investigates the effects of religious screening on payout behavior of US firms. Shariah compliant (SC) indices serve as suitable sample as they are emerging as alternative investment class in the last two decades. Through an analysis of a sample of US firms belonging to Dow Jones proprietary database for the period 2006-2018, this study provides evidence that SC firms are more prone to make total payout, cash dividends and repurchases. We use panel logistic regressions with industry and year fixed effects. The findings reveal that the drivers of higher propensity of total payout are higher profitability, higher retained earnings, lower debt capital structure and lower asset growth. The factors that contribute to likelihood of paying higher cash dividends are higher profitability, lower governance levels and lower market/book assets ratio. Moreover, better governance, lower asset growth and lower equity/assets increase the propensity of SC firms to make higher repurchases. These findings are important contribution to the Islamic corporate finance and dividend policy literature.

Capital structure serves as an important device for mitigation of agency conflicts and, although firms combine debt and cash dividends to address the agency conflicts, debt is preferred as a bonding device by many managers due to its lower cost as compared to equity (John, Knyazeva & Knyazeva, 2015). However, shariah-compliant firms (SCF) cannot use this device due to prohibition of interest-bearing loans in Islam. In this scenario, the dividend payout policy becomes a highly important tool of corporate governance for shariah-compliant investors. Moreover, the managers of these firms cannot maintain stable dividends by issuing bonds and, therefore, the dividend policy of such firms would be different. This chapter highlights the dividend payout behaviour of SCF by comparing them to conventional firms.

This study examines the impact of ethical and Shariah screening on idiosyncratic risk, performance and dividend policy decisions for US market for the period 2006-2015. A unique dataset is utilized to construct representative portfolios of Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), Shariah compliant investment and Market (proxy). The existing literature suggests that constraints on stock selection imposed by screening may limit investment universe and make faith based portfolios sub-optimal. Therefore, the investors who want to follow their religious or social beliefs need to incur cost of their values. Our results reveal that Shariah compliant investors are slightly disadvantaged in terms of idiosyncratic risk. However, they pay the price of holding religious beliefs by accepting lower risk-return trade off while SRI investors bear no such cost. Moreover, that there is not much variation in dividend policy of the faith based portfolios as compared to market proxy portfolio and good corporate governance promotes dividend payment for the sample portfolios. Furthermore, the firms with low idiosyncratic risk, low financial constraints, high book-to-market-assets ratio, high size and earned equity tend to pay higher dividends. Finally, it had been found that Shariah firms, unlike the market and SRI firms who prefer retaining excess cash, utilize high free cash flows to pay dividends to reduce agency conflicts.

The purpose of this paper is to appraise the effectiveness of monetary policy actions in variant market conditions for Islamic stocks. These stocks offer ground for a natural experiment as they have restrictions on the line of business and their distinguished capital structure does not allow them to combat the liquidity crisis through the use of leverage. The paper uses the quantile regression approach for a multi-country sample of Islamic stock indices to assess the impact of domestic as well as US expansionary monetary policy on stock returns of Islamic indices at various locations of distribution of returns. It is found that, at lower return levels, an expansionary monetary policy has a negative effect on the returns. In other cases, there is no significant impact of policy rate change on index returns. It is more appropriate to use firm level data of Islamic stocks instead of stock indices. However, the information regarding index constituents is not publicly available ...

Purpose This study aims to examine the simultaneous effect of variations in the Capital Adequacy Ratio and Credit Risk of Islamic banks of the Gulf Cooperation Council under the influence of the Basel III regulations using an innovative approach. Design/methodology/approach This approach highlights the critical importance of the Basel III reform in preserving the stability of the regional and international financial sector in the Gulf Cooperation Council and globally by examining the complex dynamics between Capital Adequacy Ratio and Credit Risk and their interaction under regulatory constraints. The annual reports and financial performance of 26 Islamic banks were analyzed over the period 2013–2021. Findings The findings highlight the critical importance of the Basel III reform in preserving the stability of the regional and international financial sector in the Gulf Cooperation Council and globally by examining the complex dynamics between Capital Adequacy Ratio and Credit Risk and their interaction under regulatory constraints. The annual reports and financial performance of 26 Islamic banks were analyzed over the period 2013–2021. Originality/value The insights from findings help define effective strategies to manage and mitigate Credit Risk while strengthening solvency under Basel III prudential supervision. Policymakers, regulatory authorities and banking institutions can optimize the management of Credit Risk and create a robust and stable financial environment for Islamic banks.

The primary goal of this paper is to explore the viability of initiating Islamic finance (IF) in an unchartered economy. Canada is taken as a case study for this paper. To achieve our objective, we proceed in two stages. The first stage involves the analysis of market opportunities for IF. More precisely, the first stage involves the cost/benefit analysis which would enable the IF industry to see whether it is feasible for them to initiate. Second, the more challenging stage involves the analysis with regard to the barriers in offering IF products.

The slides highlight: 1) the needs of Islamic finance; 2) sources of Shariah; 3) prohibition in Islamic finance.

Investment is an activity that involves the commitment of resources for a certain holding period in anticipation of creating more resource (wealth). This chapter focuses on the risk-adjusted performance of two-specific classes of assets, namely, the socially responsible investment (SRI) class and the shariah-compliant classes of assets. The aim is to ascertain whether investors have to bear an extra cost for choosing these classes of assets in their portfolio. In managing the Islamic finance space, religiosity and/or ethical practices prompt investors to discard so-called 'sin-stocks' and limit their investment horizons to permissible faith-based investment alternatives ...

We use a sample of 5,863 US firms to investigate how religious constraints affect the product market fluidity for Shariah compliant (SC) firms. The study is important as Islamic asset management is emerging as an alternative investment class. We find that SC firms are less exposed to product market threats in relation to Shariah non-compliant (SNC) firms. They are more competitive in the case of less concentrated markets, lower market share, equity multiplier, market/book assets ratio, experience lower asset growth, and spend little on research and development. Their competitive position is strengthened when their return on assets, sales and retained earnings are lower.

In recent years, there has been a notable increase in investor consideration for religiosity and/or ethics in investment decision making it a class of investments in its own right and an important input in portfolio selection decisions. Investment decisions are governed not only by factors including investor anticipation of future economic, geo-political trends, social changes and investment timing but also religion or belief system. The religiosity and/or ethical practices prompt investors to discard so-called 'sin stocks' and limit their investment horizons to permissible investment alternatives.

Shariah screening discards the firms that belong to impermissible business sectors (or sin industries) and follow capital structure with high debt and current assets. This study tests whether the firms passing Shariah screening have better (or worse) governance quality as compared to firms not subjected to Islamic screening. The screened firms may have lesser governance quality as they cannot use debt to discipline managers or achieve optimal capital structure. On the contrary, they may be better governed as these firms get higher presence of institutional investors and better analyst coverage. This paper provides comparison of governance quality of Shariah compliant (SC) firms in United States by using proprietary dataset of Dow Jones US Indices. The screened firms offer ground for a natural experiment as they pass negative ethical screening and meet financial criteria for the inclusion in the index. The findings suggest that the SC firms have lesser governance quality than Shariah Non-Compliant firms. The lower level of governance can be attributed to lower Size, lower Profitability, higher Dividend Payout, higher Total Risk and lower Free Cash Flow. Various robustness tests are performed to validate the findings and the results remained robust. These findings provide useful insights about the governance mechanism of SC firms that are emerging as an important alternative investment class in the last two decades.

According to the substitution hypothesis and recent evidence, firms that are better governed carry less debt and experience fewer agency problems. This may also imply that firms with lower debt are better governed and experience lower agency costs. We test this hypothesis by comparing the agency costs of Shariah compliant (SC, and therefore low debt) and Shariah noncompliant (SNC) firms, using a proprietary dataset comprising constituents of the Dow Jones Islamic index for the period 2006-2015. The findings support the hypothesis but are contingent on the firm's idiosyncratic risk; SC firms with low idiosyncratic risk have higher agency costs.

The aim of this article is to investigate the motivation of CEOs to invest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. To carry out this analysis, we assess a sample of US conventional and Shariah Compliant (SC) firms, from Dow Jones Indices. As SC firms undergo business and financial screening, they are expected to follow different managerial styles and capital structures as compared to conventional firms. This comparison is important in view of the growing size of the Islamic Financial Services Industry that has surpassed total asset values of USD 2.00 Trillion. Existing literature argues that, for conventional firms, CEOs spend on CSR either to promote their private benefits (agency view) or to reduce conflicts among shareholders (conflict resolution view). Our results provide evidence that across both types of firms, CEOs do not invest in CSR initiatives to pursue selfish motives but to resolve conflicts among stakeholders to maximize firm value. The findings are also robust across different specifications and methods in order to address endogeneity issues. This article contributes to the growing literature on managerial styles, capital structure and Islamic Finance, carrying out important implications for the investment industry and for the long-term value of the firm.