This paper is a contribution to the ongoing debate on the benefits and drawbacks of bank revenue diversification. Revenue diversification may benefit banks if diversified activities are inherently less risky and possess high returns, while it may hurt banks if diversified activities are more risky and have low returns. Analyzing a panel dataset of 200 commercial banks from all South Asian countries, we found that overall revenue diversification into non-interest income has a positive impact on the profitability and stability of South Asian commercial banks. We further observed that different types of non-interest income-generating activities have different impacts on bank performance and stability. While fees and commission incomes have a negative impact on the profitability and stability of South Asian commercial banks, other non-interest income has a positive impact. Our results imply that banks can benefit from revenue diversification if they diversify into specific types of non-interest income-generating activities. Our findings are robust and relevant to the use of alternative measures of revenue diversification, profitability and stability.

<p>This study grants empirical support to the fact that profitability of the Pakistani banking sector was reduced during 2008-2009 and among other factors this reduction was attributed to the global financial crisis and resulting increased investments portfolio in total assets. We have used panel data of all Pakistani scheduled banks during 2005-2012. We proved theoretically and empirically that fixed effects model is appropriate for this study. <em>Second </em>stage analysis confirms the above results and shows that the profitability of Pakistani banking sector was higher in pre and post crisis years than, in financial crisis period. Profitability was relatively lower in the after crisis years then in before crisis years because of the residual effects of the global financial crisis. In <em>third stage</em> analysis we found that private and foreign banks were more affected by financial crisis than public sector, specialized and Islamic banks. Our results are robust to alternate measures of profitability. In context of developing countries this study will help bank managers and the regulators to stay better prepared to face any financial crisis in future.  </p>

This study examines the impact of financial development on energy consumption for a wide array of countries. The estimators used for financial development are foreign direct investment, economic growth and urbanization. The study employed a panel data regression on 136 countries with time frame of years 1990 to 2019. The model in this study deploys system GMM technique to estimate the model. The results show that financial development has a significant negative impact on energy consumption overall. Foreign direct investment and urbanization has significant impact on energy consumption. Also, economic growth positive impact on energy consumption its mean that economic growth promotes energy consumption. When dividing further the sample into different groups of regions such as Asian, European, African, North/Latin American and Caribbean countries then mixed results related to the nexus between financial development and energy consumption with respect to economic growth, urbanization and foreign direct investment. The policymakers in these different groups of countries must balance the relationship between energy supply and demand to achieving the sustainable economic development.

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