This paper investigates the dynamic and the determinants of banking industry efficiency in Latin America. Allocative, technical, pure technical and scale efficiencies are calculated and analyzed in each country. We find that Latin American bank managers have been using resources efficiently, but...

Existing literature has focused attention on the impact of Basel I and similar capital requirement regulations on developed countries where such regulations were found to be effective in increasing capital ratios and reducing portfolio credit risk of commercial banks. In the present study, we...

Despite recent extreme fluctuations of the Middle East and North African (MENA) stock markets, we do not find strong evidence of rational speculative bubbles in the perspective of both domestic and U.S.-based investors. Fractional integration tests built on ARFIMA models do not support the...

This study analyzes the impact of financial sector reforms from the early 1990s on, promoting economic growth in Morocco. To derive feasible policy implications, we estimate not only pooled regressions, but also variance decompositions of GDP growth rates to examine what proxy measures of...

This paper examines the performance of seven indexes chosen from the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index (DJIM) vis-à-vis their non-Islamic counterparts using a variety of measures such as Sharpe, Treynor, Jensen and Fama’s selectivity, net selectivity and diversification. Second, we examine the...

This paper reexamines the determinants of credit default swaps (CDS) spreads in the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific markets with a new data set using linear regressions. These determinants are categorized into two groups: firm level and macroeconomic variables. We also include two non-traditional...

The financial sector incurred big losses during the recent financial collapse and recession. The losses occurred despite regulatory requirements imposed upon the financial services industry meant to ensure confidence and stability. This study analyzes the profitability and stock returns of...

This paper investigates the impact of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) on the insurance industries of developed countries. We find that the insurance industries of most of the developed countries in our sample have significant negative spillover effects from the GLBA. Further, we find that the...

Mutual fund managers face increasing competition and have incentives to quickly reallocate their portfolios in order to achieve the best risk-adjusted return. However, portfolio allocation is costly, as trading, administrative, and information costs all lower returns after management fees....