No abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of Maqasid Al-Shariah corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure of public listed companies of Shariah-compliant companies in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach -Content analysis was used to construct the Maqasid Al-Shariah CSR disclosure index. Furthermore, the study used a checklist that covered four themes of CSR, namely environment, community involvement, human resource and product, and five elements of Maqasid Al-Shariah, namely, faith, human self, intellect, posterity and wealth.Findings -The findings of the study show that the level of Maqasid Al-Shariah CSR disclosure index is generally low. The study found that Shariah-compliant companies revealed more community-related theme and an intellect element in their annual reports for the year of the survey.Originality/value -This paper is one of few papers that has developed the Maqasid Al-Shariah CSR disclosure index that used the aforementioned four themes of CSR and five Maqasid Al-Shariah elements.

Purpose This paper aims to re-examine the impact of government expenditure on income inequality. Existing studies provide mixed results on whether government expenditure reduces or increases income inequality. In this paper, government expenditure is viewed as a tool for redistribution, hence, its impact on inequality is examined. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 122 countries with 91 and 31 countries categorized as developing and developed countries is used. The dynamic panel threshold regression is used to examine the impact of government expenditure on income inequality and to estimate the turning point of the negative or positive effects. Findings The major findings suggest that, in general, government expenditure does reduce income inequality. Results from developed countries support the inversed U-shaped Kuznet curve where higher government expenditure initially led to more inequality but would eventually bring about a positive effect after a certain threshold level. For developing countries, education and development expenditure were the driving forces towards lower income inequality. Practical implications Several policy implications can be derived from this paper. First, government expenditure is a useful tool to alleviate the problem of income inequality. More integration with the global economy via trading activities is also an important channel to help reduce income inequality. Finally, better institutional quality provides an effective ecosystem in promoting better redistribution of income via government expenditure. Originality/value This paper presents a maiden attempt to estimate a threshold value or when government expenditure starts to reduce or increase income inequality. The sample is segregated into developed and developing countries to further control the effect of government size and the level of development of a country.

This article explores the political economy of Islamic banking by examining the impact of political regime types, institutional environment, government and political risk on the development of Islamic banking proxied by financing or loan growth in the case of 16 Muslims majority countries with autocratic and democratic regimes over the period of 2000–2013. The performance of Islamic banking loan growth is examined from three different perspectives—political regime and institutions, governance and political risks in both regime settings. Results suggest that loan growth is positive and significant in democratic regimes where political and civil rights are predominant. In addition, loan growths are slower during election years but higher throughout pre‐election year in democratic regimes, suggesting the opportunistic behaviour of incumbent government artificially boosting the economy in preparation for the upcoming election. It is also found that the good quality of public services, policy formulation and implementation, and credibility of government's commitment to realizing the policies are vital in ensuring positive loan growth. The lack of differences in the reaction of loan growth to the governance in democratic and autocratic regimes shows some convergence in the regimes despite having significantly different political perspective. This implies that political commitment of the ruling government is vital to set forth a strong and robust Islamic banking standing regardless of its political standpoint.

No abstract

Purpose Most empirical studies on the government expenditure-economic growth nexus suggest a negative relationship between the size of the government expenditures and economic growth especially government consumption expenditures. Given these findings, the government should focus on development expenditures and reduce non-development expenditures for higher economic growth. However, the authors argue that this may not be the case, as government consumption expenditures along with better institutional quality promote growth via reduced corruption, reduction of political risks and good governance. The purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidences that both government consumption and development expenditure promote growth in the presence of better institutional quality. Design/methodology/approach This paper re-examines the impact of government expenditures on growth whilst controlling institutional factors for a sample of 30 developed and 91 developing countries from 1984 to 2017. Government expenditure is segregated into consumption and development expenditures. Findings The results are consistent with existing findings where government consumption expenditures have a negative effect on growth and government development expenditures contribute positively towards growth. However, when the authors conditioned government consumption expenditures with institutional variables, results suggest that in the presence of good institutions, both government consumption and development expenditures promote growth. Practical implications The findings in this paper suggest that in the presence of good institutions, government consumption expenditures will contribute positively towards growth. The results are relatively consistent for both developing and developed economies, which suggests the importance of institutional factors leading to a parallel movement towards long run growth path. In other words, long run economic growth is driven by a similar institutional environment. Originality/value Both developed and developing countries show similar reactions towards consumption and development expenditures. This indicates that despite the level of development, government expenditures do contribute positively towards growth especially in the presence of better-quality institutions.

No abstract

No abstract