This paper investigates technical and scales efficiencies of microfinance institutions (MFI) in three regions: Latin America countries, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, and South Asia countries, and compares efficiencies across regions and across type of MFIs. We find that...

This paper aims to test the extent to which the tax regulatory and market discipline hypotheses determine derivative activities of U.S. commercial banks for the period starting 1992 through 2008. We employ Mansfield’s (1961) logistic diffusion model and we consider derivative activities as...

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...

We re-examine the size of the underground economy in the U.S. between 1972 and 2006, after properly adjusting for several statistical issues relating to its estimation. The dynamic error-correction-based currency demand approach confirms that income tax rates have no contemporaneous effect on...

This study examines the effect of various social, demographic, and economic variables on retirement preparation and discusses ways in which policy makers can use this information to mandate legislation that will motivate individuals to save for retirement. Using data from the Survey of Consumer...

This study investigates the link between price discovery dynamics in sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) and bond markets and degree of financial integration of emerging markets. Using CDS and sovereign bond spreads, the price discovery mechanism was tested using a vector error correction...

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 feasibility and economic benefits of stock exchanges alliances among OIC countries. Despite common Islamic culture, OIC local capital market conditions are heterogeneous depending on legal jurisdictions, income level and the maturity of stock market development....

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 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...