Generally, Shariah (Islamic) indices are considered to have lower portfolio betas relative to conventional ones. The lower portfolio beta of Islamic indexes is a logical result of Shariah screening. As Shariah screening eliminates stocks with high financial leverage, the resulting portfolio beta...

Foreign aid has evolved considerably over the last five decades in response to a dramatically changing global political and economic context. This paper takes a retrospective look at this process and discusses whether aid has been effective in furthering economic growth and development. The...

In the literature, there has been an acquiescence that the greater the dependence on oil and mineral resources, the worse the growth performance of an economy. With time series data of Oil Revenue (proxy for petroleum industry), Non-oil Revenue, Investment and GDP per capital from 1970-2012, the...

We extend the Okada & Samreth (2012, EL) and Asongu (2012, EB) debate on ‘the effect of foreign aid on corruption’ by: not partially negating the former’s methodological underpinning (as in the latter’s approach) with a unifying empirical framework and; broadening the horizon of inquiry...

This paper examined the role of export in the economic growth process in Nigeria. Time series data ranging from 1970 to 2009 was used and the study employs unit root testing, co-integration analysis and VAR Granger Causality/Exogeneity Wald Tests to analyze annual time series data from Nigeria....

The liquidity problems that appeared on the interbank money markets during the financial crisis caused an increased volatility of the interbank interest rates, especially after September 2008. Banking institutions from the Euro zone have avoided the mutual funding, which resulted in a reduction...

In order to test the existence of Thirlwall’s law for Turkey during the period of 1980-2008, bounds test approach to cointegration is applied. The empirical results suggest that Thirlwall’s law holds for Turkey. This study also suggests some policy recommendations to curb the deficits in the...

Prior to the early part of the 19th century, China’s economy had long been superior to that of the West’s. The Chinese’s ability to utilize science and technology had been instrumental in leading their enormous population to economic prosperity and for a while, superiority. During the 18th...

Empirical evidence suggests that poorer countries have larger portions of predation. We formulate a neoclassical growth model in which agents devote time either to produce or predate. When the elasticity of substitution between labor and capital is lower than one, the labor share rises with...

This paper considers the evidence on the comparative extent to which faith-based civil society organizations (FB-CSOs) have benefited from increased funding related to the HIV/AIDS response in Africa. First, we review the literature on whether FB-CSOs have benefited from such funding, and find...