This paper presents an analysis of the factors affecting foreign direct investments, focusing on governance quality and adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards on countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which are a special case of study due to their idiosyncratic...

This paper studies the volatility spillover between oil price and conventional and Islamic stock markets. We use a sample of five standard MSCI indexes and their Islamic counterparts from five countries from the Gulf region (Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE) and Brent crude oil price index,...

Investors are interested in knowing whether sukuk bonds and shariah stock indices in the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) region are related. This study examines the connectedness between the sukuk- and shariah-compliant stock indices in the GCC financial markets. Bivariate and multivariate...

This paper analyzes the conditional correlations between the stock market returns of countries that are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The innovative aspects of the paper consist of focusing on three volatility indices: the oil (OVX), gold (GVZ), and S&P500 (VIX) markets...

In less than a decade, the Islamic Banking (IB) industry has become an essential part of the global financial system. During the last ten years, the IB industry has witnessed changes in economic conditions and proved to be resilient during the periods of financial crisis. This paper aims to...

This study examines herding behavior in four sectors of the Gulf Islamic stock markets. Based on the methodology of Chiang and Zheng (2010), results showed evidence of herding among investors in major sectors for the Gulf Cooperation Council (hereinafter GCC) Islamic stock market during falling...

Purpose - This paper aims to scrutinize and analyze the continuity and change in US foreign policy toward the Gulf region, with a comparison between the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Also, it explores the nature of the changes in US foreign policy toward the Gulf region to...

This paper examines financial spillovers between the four largest equity markets (by market capitalization) in the GCC region using a VAR-GARCH (1,1) framework that sheds light on interdependence as well as the effects of the 2014 oil crisis. Since the UAE is a federation including two stock...

This study aims to identify public financial indicators involved in the investment projects of GCC countries. The data was collected from the IMF and the MEED from 2011-2017. The study measured the impact of public finance based on eight variables and two proxies (national and trade accounts) on...

1. Introduction: FinTech and Islamic Finance in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); Nafis Alam and Syed Nazim Ali -- 2. A Critical Analysis of Bitcoin from an Islamic Legal Perspective; Farrukh Habib -- 3. Combining Islamic Equity Portfolios and Digital Currencies: Evidence from Portfolio...

The banking and financial landscape in the last decade has been inundated with "technology". Financial Technology (FinTech), Insurance Technology (InsurTech) and Regulatory Technology (RegTech) are just some of the new buzzwords. Close to 80% of Fintech investments happen in the US, while it is...

Recent innovations that the Banking sector has witnessed are in the areas of Financial Technologies, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain. The real investment opportunity for GCC countries is in the underlying innovative applications of Blockchain. The coming years could be pivotal in accelerating...

The water-food nexus in the Middle East and Northern African (MENA) region is characterized by resource depletion, import dependence and environmental degradation. This contribution proposes that consumption awareness and resource circularity can be seen as a pathway to alleviate environmental...

"This book looks at the current state of entrepreneurship development in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It is a comprehensive state-of-the-art coverage of entrepreneurship and small business...

The banking and financial landscape has been inundated with technology over the last decade, with FinTech, InsurTech and RegTech being just some of the new applications within finance. In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), FinTech is yet to ­find its feet despite several digital transformation...

Much research is devoted to the study of the effect of oil on GCC markets. The link is evident, although waning. Little is known about the effect of other commodities, maybe because intuitively they are thought not to impact significantly these markets. However a finding of independence, or...

This study aims to explain the role of economic freedom in attracting foreign investments and thus raising the level of economic growth. Through a study based on a sample composed of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. A standard model consisting of GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, United...

The literature on remittances is large and growing. However, its focus has mainly been on the effects of remittance inflows on the receiving economies. Little has been done on the sending economies. In this paper, we use data from Saudi Arabia, one of the top remitting countries in the world, to...

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries host at least 2.4 million foreign domestic workers, who are legally excluded from national labor laws and regulations, thus placing them in precarious social, legal, and economic conditions in the GCC labor markets. Despite the recent growth of...

Our paper examines the effect of oil price changes on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stock markets using nonlinear smooth transition regression (STR) models. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our empirical results reveal that GCC stock markets do not have similar sensitivities to oil price...