Banks' return reaction to freedom, sentiment, and uncertainty

The paper aims to investigate the impact of freedom dimensions, investor sentiment, and uncertainty on bank stock returns. Additionally, this study examines the interaction between economic freedom dimensions and oil prices. To meet the study's objectives, a two-step GMM estimator was applied to the data collected from 173 banks in 18 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region countries during 2010-2020. The findings revealed that the influence of economic, business, and labour freedoms on banks' stock returns was negative and significant, but government spending was positive and significant. The results for the region's monarchies indicated similar effects to those of the entire MENA region, except for lagged bank stock returns that were negative. Besides, both investor sentiment and uncertainty positively impact bank stock returns. In addition, it was found that the interaction between freedom and oil price significantly and positively impacted bank performance. The robustness testing results confirmed this finding. Moreover, this research stands out as one of the limited investigations that have scrutinized the 18 MENA countries, which are predominantly Islamic and characterized by their distinct social norms, geography, and cultural identities.