We document the phenomenon of under-pricing initial public offerings (IPOs) for 47 Gulf firms that went public between 2001 and 2006. The IPOs had, on average, initial abnormal returns of 290 percent, far exceeding those documented for both developed and emerging markets. In aftermarket...

Value-at-Risk (VaR) is used to analyze the market downside risk associated with investments in six key individual assets including four precious metals, oil and the S&P 500 index, and three diversified portfolios. Using combinations of these assets, three optimal portfolios and their efficient...

In this paper, we examine the influence of bank regulation, concentration, and financial and institutional development on commercial bank margins and profitability across a broad selection of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. The empirical results suggest that bank-specific...

This book offers insights into the process of economic reform in developing countries. It is organized around three factors that are critical to the success of any reform. According to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, these key dimensions are Reach, Range, and Reason. ‘Reach’ refers to...

This paper examines the short term and long term dependencies between stock market returns and OPEC basket oil returns for the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) and two non-oil producing countries in the region...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficiency of the emerging stock markets in the Middle Eastern countries. Design/methodology/approach – The paper investigates the validity of the random walk hypothesis (RWH) and tests for calendar effects in five major Middle...

We examine and analyze the post-privatization corporate governance of a sample of 52 newly privatized Egyptian firms over a period of 10 years, from 1995 to 2005. We look at the ownership structure that results from privatization and its evolution; the determinants of private ownership...

The emerging literature on foreign direct investment (FDI) now stipulates that FDI's positive impact on growth depends on absorptive capacities. Prime among these capacities is financial development. The paper provides support to this thesis in the context of the Arab countries whose financial...