Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study earnings management practices of Islamic banks and conventional banks in the Middle East region. First, the authors examine factors that may influence Islamic banks managers' use of discretion in reporting loan loss provisions (LLP). Second, the...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine factors influencing decisions to repurchase shares on-market in Australia. The present study also examines the role of board size, board independence and chief executive officer duality on the decision to repurchase shares on-market by...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the signaling and free cash flow hypotheses of dividends in the context of an emerging financial market. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use fundamental financial information of Chinese companies listed in the Shenzhen and Shanghai...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test whether the volatility of regional stock markets’ is common or country-specific for 46 international markets of the Asian, European, African and Latin American regions using the Morgan Stanley Capital International daily prices in the period...

Purpose – The aim of this study is to investigate the corporate financing behaviour of nonfinancial Greek listed companies, focusing on how managers determine optimal capital structure. Design/methodology/approach – The study analyses the results derived from questionnaires submitted to the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is evaluate the interrelations between Islamic financing and key economic and financial variables including real output, price level, interest rate and stock prices for the case of Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach – The paper makes use of a structural...

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings on the ex ante cost of capital of more than 2,300 listed US companies in a panel from 2003 to 2010. It examines whether financial markets value continuous investment in CSR activities through...

Purpose – The main objective of this study is to obtain new empirical evidence on non-synchronous trading effects through modelling the predictability of market indices. Design/methodology/approach – The authors test for lead-lag effects between the Indian Nifty and Nifty Junior indices...

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the contagion effects of stock and FX markets for the USA and european monetary union (EMU) during the US subprime crisis of 2007-2009. Design/methodology/approach – The data sample is daily comprising a weighted Morgan Stanley Capital Index (MSCI)...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between trading volume and returns in the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude oil futures markets. In so doing, the paper addresses two important issues. First, whether there is a positive relationship between returns...