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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the firm level determinants of capital structure of Egyptian publicly traded non-financial firms. The study investigates the firm level determinants of capital structure of Egyptian companies utilising data from the financial statements of 62 listed companies over the time period from 2003 to 2016. The study investigates whether the capital structure decisions in Egypt are closer to the assumptions of Trade-Off Theory, of Pecking Order Theory or of the Agency Cost Theory. The empirical evidence obtained allows us to conclude that Trade-Off and Pecking Order Theories are the most theories to describe the financial behaviour of the Egyptian companies' choice of capital structure whereas there was little evidence to support the agency cost theory.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between bank-specific factors and the profitability of banks in Egypt. Thus, finding the main internal characteristics for achieving higher profitability. In this research, OLS regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between bank-specific characteristics and bank's profitability for a sample of 19 Egyptian banks during the period 2007-2016. The findings reveal that bank size and loan loss provision ratio are the main determinants of bank's profitability, by showing a significant relationship with all measures of profitability. Capital ratio shows a significant relationship with ROA and NIM, but insignificant with ROE. However, Loan ratio and deposit ratio have an insignificant effect of bank's profitability.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in the global economy. It had a major part in creating jobs and as a source of social stability, either there is major contribution for SMEs in Egypt as it faces great economy challenges that need cooperation from all parties. However, access to finance is still one of the greatest obstacles facing SMEs all over the world and prevents them from developing. This research is important to fill the research gap which appears in the limited researches that present main factors adopted by the credit decision maker in Banks for evaluating the SMEs. Purpose of this study is to make a progress for filling the gap through exploring these factors. The research was guided by the following research questions: What are the factors that influence credit decision making for lending SMEs? What framework is available to improve the SMEs lending process in the Egyptian Banks? Case study strategy and Quantitative Methods were adopted. Data was gathered from 313 structured questionnaires answered by credit risk and marketing employees from National Bank of Egypt (NBE). The author tested five hypotheses on the relationship between variables, with the SPSS "Package for the Social Sciences" and AMOS "Analysis of a Moment Structure". They were utilized to interpret the results. The findings provide evidence that factors, like Owner/Manager Character, Capacity, Firm Capital Size, Credit Bureau Report with the availability and Credibility of Financial statements, had a huge impact on Credit Decision for lending SMEs. From the research results, there was framework designing to enhance the credit risk assessment process, which could decrease the uncertainty and time consuming in the lending decision and it might reflect positively on the national economy development.

The focus of this paper is to test whether the Fama and French three-factor and five factor models can capture the variations of returns in the Egyptian stock market as one of the growing emerging markets over the time-period July 2005 to June 2016. To achieve this aim, following Fama and French (2015), the authors construct the Fama and French factors and three sets of test portfolios which are: 10 portfolios double-sorted on size and the BE/ME ratio, 10 portfolios double-sorted on size and operating profitability, and 10 portfolios double-sorted on size and investment for the Egyptian stock market. Using time-series regressions and the GRS test, the results show that although both models cannot be rejected as valid asset pricing models when applied to portfolios double-sorted on size and the BE/ME ratio, they still leave substantial variations in returns unexplained given their low adjusted R2 values. Similarly, when the two models are applied to portfolios double-sorted on size and investment, the results of the GRS test show that both models cannot be rejected. However, when the two models are applied to portfolios double-sorted on size and operating profitability, the results of the GRS test show that both models are strongly rejected which imply that both models leave substantial variations in returns related to size and profitability unexplained. Specifically, the biggest challenge to the two models is the big portfolio with weak profitability which generate a significantly negative intercept implying that the models overestimate its return.