What happens when financial contracts contain religious statements? Financial prospectuses and contractual documentation of Islamic bonds often refer to sacred principles in unambiguous terms. We show that the use of religious references in these contracts is priced by investors. In general,...

For the first time we investigate the impact of credit rating changes on the financing decisions of overconfident CFOs. We find that CFO overconfidence significantly increases the sensitivity of net debt issuances to the rating changes, particularly when firms have no access to low-risk debt....

Harnessing CEO overconfidence whilst exploiting their risk appetite and over-optimism has long been of interest to management scholars and firms. We find that overconfident CEOs’ reluctance to access external financing indicates that they reduce their acquisition activity at high rating...

There has been a considerable expansion of corporate bond markets in China in the recent years. The objective of this study is to examine the stock market reaction following bond issuance by Chinese companies. In addition to analyzing for positive or negative reactions to bond issues, we...

This paper analyses the effect of bank profitability on economic growth. While policymakers have shown major concerns for low levels of bank profitability, there are no empirical studies on the growth effects of bank profitability. To fill this gap, we investigate the impact of bank...

Considering the evidence that China's five largest state-owned banks (the Big Five) suffer from low cost efficiency, this paper decomposes overall efficiency of Chinese banks into: persistent efficiency and transient efficiency components. Low persistent efficiency reflects structural problems,...

There has been a considerable expansion of corporate bond markets in China in the recent years. The objective of this study is to examine the stock market reaction following bond issuance by Chinese companies. In addition to analyzing for positive or negative reactions to bond issues, we...