This study provides new evidence on the role of financial development in accounting for economic growth. To derive feasible policy implications, we estimate not only unbalanced panel regressions with period fixed effects, but also variance decompositions of annual GDP growth rates to examine...

This study extends the of-balance sheet (OBS) banking literature to thrift OBS activities by empirically examining the motivation for thrift institutions to engage in various OBS activities, and to shed light on the risk-based capital requirement of thrift OBS activities. This is the first known...

This paper presents an analysis of the impact of ownership structure and regulation on the risk-taking behavior of commercial banks and savings and loans. Our work differs from previous efforts in that we measure risk in terms of an institution's asset or business risk, using the Ronn-Verma...

This paper investigates the impact of the Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA) of 1999 on the insurance industry. We identify three events that have a differential impact across the business lines of the insurance industry. The overall impact of the FSMA across the business lines in the...

This study reports new findings on the behavior of index futures (FKLI: code name of Kuala Lumpur Index Futures contract) prices and also records the effect of a major financial crisis on the prices. Since the inception of trading in 1995, the FKLI has been selling at a discount, which gradually...

This paper measures and compares the cost, revenue and profit efficiency of 43 Islamic and 37 conventional banks over the period 1990-2005 in 21 countries using Data Envelopment Analysis. It assesses the average and overtime efficiency of those banks based on their size, age, and region using...

After barely half a century of experience, Islamic banking has become established as a niche industry across the world, offering new and sophisticated financial products designed to be compliant with Islamic legal principles and common law. This comprehensive book explores the theory, principles...

This article focuses on the short- and long-term assets and liabilities gap and the determinants of net interest/profit margins of both conventional banks and Islamic banks in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries over the period from 1997 to 2010. The results show that both...

Capital adequacy plays an important role in determining banking activities. A bank must hold a minimum level of capital to ensure sufficient funds to buffer against unexpected losses or adverse shocks. This study analyzes and compares Islamic and conventional banks in 14 Organization of Islamic...