Stock Market Integration in the MENA Region: An Application of the ARDL Bounds Testing Approach

This study examines financial integration among four emerging stock markets in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. The study also examines the integration between these markets and developed markets represented by the US, UK and Germany. The study utilizes the newly proposed autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration. The results show evidence of the existence of integration among stock markets in the MENA region, but not between the MENA markets and developed markets. This provides opportunities for international investors to obtain long-run gains through portfolio diversification in the MENA region, while for regional investors, these opportunities are limited in the long run.stock market integration; MENA region; ARDL bounds testing approach

Structural Changes in the Middle East Stock Markets: The case of Israel and Arab Countries

This paper tests for structural changes in the price indices of four stock markets in the Middle East region, namely, Egypt, Turkey Jordan, Morocco and Israel. The Innovational Outlier (IO) model and Additive Outlier (AO) model indicate that all variables show evidence of non-stationarity, I(1), even with structural change. Moreover, the coefficients for all dummy variables such as intercept, slope and time of the break are found to be significant and all have the right signs. The endogenously determined times of the breaks for all variables coincides with observed real events for each country, like Asian crises, fluctuation in oil prices and the political conflict in the Middle East.Structural changes, Middle East stock markets, Israel, Arab countries

Revisiting Budget and Trade Deficits in Lebanon: A Critique

This study re-examines the relationship between the budget deficit and the trade deficit in Lebanon. In contrast to earlier studies, we start by testing for a unit root in the presence of structural change using the Innovational Outlier (IO) model. This study also utilizes the newly proposed autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to examine such a relationship. The results show that the endogenously determined times of the breaks coincide with observed real events occurring during the years of Civil War in Lebanon and especially after the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. This study finds, as well, that the trade deficit in Lebanon has a long run impact on the budget deficit.Budget deficit, trade deficit, structural break, ARDL, Lebanon

Adverse Selection And Moral Hazard Effects In The Malaysian Mortgage Market.

Adverse selection and moral hazard arise in markets with imperfect or asymmetrical information, i.e., one party has more information than the other, such as the labour market, credit market, and insurance market. Prices in markets with imperfect information may have two effects: sorting and incentive effects (Stiglitz and Weiss, 1981). Interest rates sort customers into three groups, namely, low risk, medium risk, and high risk group. With higher interest rates, low and medium risk groups are more likely to drop out of the market. Therefore, higher interest rates act as a screening device in rationing credit and may adversely sort bad customers with high risk from good customers with low risk

Case report: brown fat accumulation of Tc-99m macroaggregated albumin in a lung perfusion study in a patient with multiple lung arteriovenous malformations and right-to-left shunting

An 18-year-old man was preoperatively assessed for a varicocele and found to be hypoxemic. A Tc-99m macroaggregated albumin lung perfusion scan showed right-to-left shunting, evidenced by increased radiotracer uptake in the brain, kidneys, thyroid gland, and bilateral supraclavicular areas, a typical location for brown adipose tissue. Chest computerized tomography angiogram study showed supraclavicular fat density areas and multiple pulmonary arteriovenous malformations. The authors report a rare case of brown fat visualization on a lung perfusion scan in a patient with right-to-left shunting, likely because of increased perfusion to activated brown adipose tissue

The Effect of Corporate Governance on Firm Performance in Jordan

Due to widespread corporate scandals and failures around the world, there has been a renewed interest in the effect of corporate governance on firm performance. The majority of research concerning corporate governance and its effect on firm performance has been undertaken in developed countries and markets, particularly the UK and the US, but relatively little evidence is provided in the Middle East, specifically Jordan. This study investigates the effect of the corporate governance on firm performance of the Jordanian industrial and services companies during the period 2000 to 2010. This study primarily employs the agency theory to investigate the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance. The agency theory is concerned with the agency problem between principals and agents (i.e. shareholders and managers, respectively), which undermines value maximization. It has been argued that the board of directors, ownership concentration and managerial ownership are efficient corporate governance mechanisms to solve the agency problem between shareholders and management. Multiple regression panel data analysis is the main tool of analysis in this study. The statistical method used to test this impact is Generalised Least Square (GLS) Random Effects models. The study is based on the three sets of data: (1) a sample of 115 firms listed in the Amman Stock Exchange; (2) corporate governance data collected from Osiris database; and (3) data generated through the annual reports of the firms. Empirical investigation reveals a mixed set of results. Our findings fail to reveal any significant impact for the board size on firm performance. However, CEO duality tends to have a positive effect on the firm performance, which indicates that the Jordanian firms perform better if the chairman and the CEO roles are combined in a single individual. It was also found that NEDs have a negative impact on firm performance, which is inconsistent with the monitoring hypothesis of agency theory, which holds that the NEDs play an important role in the board as a source of experience, monitoring services, reputation and expert knowledge with the likelihood to improve firm performance. Furthermore, our findings report positive and negative impacts of managerial ownership and ownership concentration on firm performance (respectively). Finally, our findings reveal a positive relationship between foreign ownership and firm performance

Adverse selection and moral hazard effects in the Malaysian credit market: An empirical analysis

The purpose of this paper is to test empirically the impact of adverse selection and moral hazard on the Malaysian credit market. The paper develops a supply and demand function for credit in Malaysia by using monthly data over the period from January 1983 to November 1993 which has seen a recession and several years of sustained economic growth. Unconstrained 3SLS is used to estimate the model. The study shows that credit rationing is not practised in the Malaysian credit market, i.e., adverse selection is not present. However, commercial banks were willing to give more loans at higher interest rates which contributed to the problem of moral hazard. The reasons for the absence of credit rationing might be due to the enforcement of lending guidelines to the priority sectors during the period of the study and the concern of banks about their profitability which increases at higher interest rates. The policy implications of the findings are discussed

ECVT Imaging of 3-D Flow Structures and Solids Concentration Distributions in a Riser and a Bend of a Gas-Solid Circulating Fluidized Bed

Experimental studies using electrical capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) are conducted to examine gas-solid flows in a riser and a bend of a 0.05 m (2 in) ID gas-solid circulating fluidized bed (CFB) system. The quantitative measurements using ECVT are made that illustrate a three-dimensional symmetric core-annulus structure in the riser and a non-centro-symmetric core-annulus structure in the bend. Results on the volume solids holdup distributions in the riser and in the bend at various operating conditions are also obtained

A cluster density functional theory study of the interaction of the hydrogen storage system NaAIH4 with transition metal catalysts

Sodium alanate (NaAlH4) is a prototype system for storage of hydrogen in chemical form. However, a key experimental finding, that early transition metals (TMs) like Ti, Zr, and Sc are good catalysts for hydrogen release and re-uptake, while traditional hydrogenation catalysts like Pd and Pt are poor catalysts for NaAlH4, has so far gone unexplained. We have performed density functional theory calculations at the PW91 generalised gradient approximation level on Ti, Zr, Sc, Pd, and Pt interacting with the (001) surface of nanocrystalline NaAlH4, employing a cluster model of the complex metal hydride. A key difference between Ti, Zr, and Sc on the one hand, and Pd and Pt on the other hand is that exchange of the early TM atoms with a surface Na ion, whereby Na is pushed on to the surface, is energetically preferred over surface absorption in an interstitial site, as found for Pd and Pt. The theoretical findings are consistent with a crucial feature of the TM catalyst being that it can be transported with the reaction boundary as it moves into the bulk, enabling the starting material to react away while the catalyst eats its way into the bulk, and effecting a phase separation between a Na-rich and a Al-rich phase. In addition, the role of different active species such as Ti2 and TiH2 has been studied using the same model. The results imply that Ti2 and TiH2 are more stable in the subsurface region of the cluster than on the surface. Calculations were performed on the decomposition of two calcium alanates, to determine zero-point energy corrected enthalpies of dehydrogenation for these compounds, and to determine whether destabilization of LiBH4 by CaH2 might improve the performance of this material.Advanced Chemical Technologies for Sustainability (ACTS)UBL - phd migration 201

Family endowment of shares in joint stock companies; Legal jurisprudential study

This study aims to demonstrate the importance of the investment of Family endowment of shares in joint stock companies. This is meant to be done through highlighting two aspects, the importance of this type of investment and the goals that could be achieved serving the purpose it was set for. Towards this end, this study is to show the possibility of investing the family endowment funds in the joint stock companies by setting the doctrinal basis of the family endowment, which shows its doctrinal and legal conditions. It also discusses investing the funds of family endowment in the stocks in accordance with the legal and Islamic laws. This study is based on discussion and analyses of the main problems that could encounter the process of the endowment of stock