Are there long-run diversification gains from the Dow Jones Islamic Finance Index?

We compare nonlinear cointegration tests with the standard cointegration tests in studying the relationship of the Dow Jones Islamic finance index with three other conventional equity market indices. Our results show that there is a long-run nonlinear cointegrating relationship between the Dow Jones Islamic stock market index and other conventional stock market indices. Our findings rely on a battery of standard tests as well as on the Bierens and Martins (2010) test that investigates time-varying coefficient cointegration in a multivariate system. Islamic markets seem to offer little, if any, long-run diversification to international investors.