The prolonged war in Iraq, the political turmoil in Lebanon, the heightened tension between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the specter of an attack on Iran have all significantly shaken business uncertainty levels in several MENA countries. Sovereign risk – the credit risk assessment...

We analyze the role of domestic and foreign banks in Saudi Arabia during the latest financial crisis that has ravaged the world since 2007. The study is based on the growth rate in market share of the credit extended by each bank and investors’ perception about the risk exposure of this...

The purpose of this research paper is to examine social Islamic mutual funds’ financial performance. Since Islamic mutual funds have only been around for the past two decades, most of the research on this topic is fairly new. In this study we apply the single factor model of Schwert and Seguin...

This paper investigates the mean reversion patterns in MENA stock markets. Following Fama and French (1988) and Lo and Mackinlay (1988) and using recent stock market data between 1995 and 2000 on Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Turkey we find evidence of mean reversion in Turkey with mixed results...

We investigate the performance and risk in two prominent countries in the MENA region, Egypt and Lebanon, where banks operate under market-oriented economic regimes. The study covers the 1990?s, a period that witnessed banking sector reforms towards a more efficient financial system. Noting the...

Are stock market returns mean-reverting in the region? Mean reversion in a stock market suggests that bad returns are likely to be followed by periods of good returns. By contrast, in a random walk setting, the future is a flip of a coin, regardless of the return outcomes in earlier periods. An...

The rapid proliferation of Islamic-oriented investments has placed an added urgency on better understanding their risk profile. With respect to Islamic stock market indexes, this concern is more pertinent to the extent that indexes could be subject to manipulation, and because they are often...

The research and bank model developed in this paper for the case of Indonesia is motivated by the following: 1. A recent change in banking regulations in Indonesia, like the statutory reserve requirement and full implementation of Basel II in 2011, coupled with a lack of literature to document...

The past two decades have witnessed many episodes of economic reform across the developing world. Although initiated with popular enthusiasm, sustaining and completing these reform packages has turned out to be much more difficult, with policymakers having to `walk the line' between success and...