No abstract

This article uses a unique bank level data from 1991 to 2000 and evaluates how financial reforms affect banking efficiency of domestic and foreign banks in Pakistan. The results suggest that banking efficiency falls during initial reform period when banks adjust to enhanced competition but increases in more advanced stages of reform. While in general foreign and private banks show superior efficiency and factor productivity than do state-owned banks, the relative performance of foreign banks worsens after the consolidation stage of the financial reforms is over. We show the importance of link between bank size, asset quality and bank branches with efficiency indexes and also note that every 10% increase in share of nonperforming to total loans decreases banking efficiency by 6 to 10%.

Purpose -Islamic banking is an increasingly important factor in the UK financial environment. With Islamic banks entering the industry in significant numbers -and competing directly with the incumbent "conventional" ones -the question of selection criteria of the banks' customers is of obvious interest. The purpose of this paper is to study the decision-making process of a sample of UK customers and the factors that may influence them. Design/methodology/approach -The paper uses a sample of 156 UK questionnaire respondents, comprising Muslim and non-Muslim bank customers alike. The methodological approach is partly borrowed from Masood et al. with the chosen questions aimed at finding out what drives the selection process of bank customers. Findings -The paper's major findings show that, irrespective of the demographic features and the religion of the respondents, the criterion "low services charges" is the top customers' criteria. The Islamic nature of the bank is, however, placed second, pointing to the importance of religious orientation.Research limitations/implications -The major limitation of the paper relates to the size of the sample of respondents. The findings of the paper are likely to be of interest to UK banks determining how best to attract customers in the new era. Future research may usefully focus on an international comparison of bank selection criteria by employing an index of religiosity. Originality/value -The paper is of particular value because it focuses on the choice of banking in the context of the recent significant growth in the Islamic banking industry in the UK.

This paper investigates the perceptions of employees in Islamic banks and Islamic branches of conventional banks regarding practices and growth of Islamic banking in Pakistan. For this purpose, questionnaires were distributed to employees working in these banks. The results reveal that bankers in Islamic banks perceive that Islamic banking is in accordance with Shari'ah and Islamic principles. They hold positive perceptions regarding the practices, objectives and growth of Islamic banking and believe that banks and government are committed towards the development of Islamic banking in the country. Results also show that bankers are confident that Islamic banking will grow and expand in the country in future. The study suggests that the issue of availability of well-trained and skilled employees must be addressed by government and stakeholders for the sustainable growth of Islamic banking in Pakistan.

This paper attempts to investigate whether young graduates possess the leadership style that is pre-requisite to become entrepreneur. The paper further examines the role of higher education towards the desire of new venture creation among young graduates in developing economies specially. This study analyzed the response of 225 final-semester students at different universities in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore. A questionnaire based survey instrument was used. Result of the present study shows that education and new venture creation are positively and significantly correlated. The results further indicate that all variables used in this study are significantly correlated with intention to create a new venture. The limitation of this study is that it includes business and economics discipline students only. Further studies may investigate and examine the possibilities of similar outcomes among students of other disciplines including science, engineering, medicine, agriculture and law etc. The present study will, however, provide insight to future policy makers and planners to consider strategies for optimally utilizing the expertise and potentials of the young graduates. The academicians, educators, and university authorities have rethink what to teach? How to teach? In order to effectively prepare-young generation for the forthcoming challenges.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to analyse the factors responsible for the rise and growth of smaller Islamic banks in the last decade. Design/methodology/approach -Z-score analysis is used to test the stability of both smaller and larger Islamic banks. The pooled ordinary least square (OLS) regression technique is also employed to examine the factors. Findings -The results of this paper show higher z-scores for smaller Islamic banks indicating that the latter have tended to be more stable than larger Islamic banks over the last decade. Z-scores tend to increase with bank size for large Islamic banks, but decrease with size for the small Islamic banks. The OLS regression results confirm that larger banks have greater income diversity than do the smaller banks. Originality/value -Islamic banking represents a radical departure from conventional banking, and from the viewpoint of corporate governance; it embodies a number of interesting features since equity participation, risk and profit-and-loss sharing arrangements form the basis of Islamic financing. Using econometric techniques, this paper provides valuable insights as to the stability of Islamic banks and the factors responsible for the growth of smaller such institutions that has been witnessed in the last decade.

No abstract

Purpose. Crude oil is an important and most demanded commodity throughout the world. There are various oil processes like electricity production, manufacturing processes and transport sector. Oil is the basic necessity thus is important to study the volatility in oil prices because oil price volatility reduces the aggregate output for short run and as a result uncertainty increases and investment also decreases (Guo and Kliesen, 2005).This research analysis the effect of exchange rate variation and the fiscal policy changes on the oil price volatility and granger causality of macroeconomic variables.Lee (1998) defined volatility as the standard deviation in a given period. She submitted that Volatility has a negative and significant impact on economic growth immediately, while the impact of oil price changes delays until after a year. She concludes by stating that it is volatility/change in crude oil prices rather than oil price level that has a significant influence on economic growth. Methodology. GARCH (1,1) test define the exchange rate has not a significant relation with the local oil price but fiscal policy effect and foreign oil price has a significant relation on the local oil price. Granger Causality test indicate that oil price volatility does not granger cause on public sector investment and gross domestic production does not granger cause on public sector investment is significant. Except these relationship, all other variables relationship exist and possible. Findings. This research identify the effect of exchange rate, fiscal policy and international oil prices on oil prices of Pakistan. Different econometrics tests are utilized for analyses. Due to shortage of time, money and resources, this study only focus on Pakistan but this type of study can also implemented in Asia or more developing countries for more generalize effects and conclusion. Originality. This is the first implemented research who define the magnitude, direction and effects among the variable in context of Pakistan. Before this research, there is only opinions are founds by different economists, politicians and analysists.