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PurposeGreen finance has shown the importance of being socially responsible and supporting the flow of financial instruments to develop environmentally sustainable and ethical business models. The growing trends raised the need for a quantitative study to address scientific performance analysis and intellectual development. This paper aims to cater quantitative statistics, through a bibliometric review to understand the vital intellectual and influential constitution of green and socially responsible finance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply trending and cutting-edge quali-quantitative approach of bibliometric citation analysis and review of 280 journal articles from the Web of Science database for the period of 1981–2021.FindingsThe results identify the leading academic authors, journals, institutions and countries with relation to green and socially responsible finance literature. We also discuss three research streams in this field: (1) overview of green finance, perception and investor behavior; (2) analysis of performance models and growth factors of green finance; (3) pricing mechanism of SRI. Finally, we identify the research gaps within existing green finance literature, proposing 30 research questions for the future agenda.Research limitations/implicationsThe study confines on the Web of Science database, English published articles in known journals and reviews only. It relies on a reputable source and top scientific productions with the most direct link to green finance.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors knowledge, this paper is the first to discuss research streams in the literature of Green finance from a bibliometric aspect along with vast coverage of articles from reputed journals and databases till date. The results of this research along with future research questions will guide the researchers and academicians to further explore and stand on solid quantitative basis regarding the scientific development of Green finance.

Purpose: The Islamic banking literature has been growing rapidly in the last decade. The aim of this study is to carry out a retrospective hybrid review to reveal this literature’s influential scientific actors (countries, institutions, journals, authors and documents), identify and discuss its most important streams, and finally, present a future research agenda. Methodology: We use a bibliometric approach, performing a review and objective analysis of 1,304 articles dealing with Islamic banking published during 1983–2021. We apply citation, keyword, and coauthorship analysis, as well as bibliographic coupling via VOSviewer software and Biblioshiny (an R package). Findings: We identify the influential aspects in the literature and discuss four important research streams: (1) overview, growth, and legal framework of Islamic banks; (2) Islamic banks’ performance and risk management practices; (3) customer and marketing perspectives of Islamic banking; and (4) the dynamics of efficiency in Islamic banks. Originality: This is one of the first studies to apply state-of-the-art methodology to review the literature related to Islamic banking and to highlight the dynamics of Islamic banks while presenting an extensive future research agenda. أهداف البحث: شهدت أدبيات المصارف الإسلامية نموًا متسارعًا في العقد الماضي. وعليه، تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى إجراء مراجعة شاملة للأدبيات الإنجليزية في هذا المجال، وتحقيق ثلاثة أهداف؛ الأول: الكشف عن العناصر الفاعلة والمؤثرة بحثيًا من حيث (الدول، والمؤسسات العلمية، والمجلات المتخصصة، والباحثين والخبراء، والأبحاث الأعلى تأثيرًا)، الثاني: تحديد ومناقشة أهم المجالات المعرفية التي تشملها أدبيات المصارف الإسلامية، الثالث: تقديم مقترحات بحثية في موضوعات ما زالت خصبة للبحث. منهج البحث: تم استعمال المنهج الببليومتركي مرفقًا بمنهج تحليل المحتوى لعمل مراجعة كمية ونوعية لـ 1304 مقالًا تناولت موضوعات متخصصة في المصارف الإسلامية، تم استدعاء البيانات من قاعدة بيانات (ويب أوف ساينس) من الفترة 1983-2021، وتم تطبيق التحاليل الببليومتركية كتحليل الاقتران الببليوغرافي، والكلمات الأكثر تكرارًا، وتحليل المحتوى بالاقتران والتكرار إلخ، وذلك باستخدام برنامج VOSviewer وحزمة Biblioshiny المتوفرة على برنامج R لتحليل البيانات. النتائج: توصلت الدراسة إلى الكشف عن العناصر الفاعلة والمؤثرة في التخصص، وقامت بمناقشة مفصلة عن المسارات البحثية الكلية والفرعية التي تنقسم لها أدبيات الدراسات السابقة، وهي: (1) المصارف الإسلامية: نظرات عامة، مسائل النمو، والإطار القانوني للمصارف الإسلامية، (2) أداء البنوك الإسلامية وممارسات إدارة المخاطر، (3) المصارف الإسلامية من منظور العملاء والتسويق، (4) ديناميات الكفاءة في المصارف الإسلامية. أصالة البحث: تعد هذه الدراسة الأولى من نوعها من حيث استعمال المنهج الببليومتركي وتحليل المحتوى في مجال المصارف الإسلامية، وهو ما يساعد الباحثين في التعرف على عناصر التأثير ومجالات التخصص بالإضافة لمقترحات بحثية، مما يسهم في تطوير البحث العلمي في مجال المصارف الإسلامية.

PurposeInternational Journal of Emerging Markets (IJoEM) is a leading journal that publishes high-quality research focused on emerging markets. In 2020, IJoEM celebrated its fifteenth anniversary, and the objective of this paper is to conduct a retrospective analysis to commensurate IJoEM's milestone.Design/methodology/approachData used in this study were extracted using the Scopus database. Bibliometric analysis, using several indicators, is adopted to reveal the major trends and themes of a journal. Mapping of bibliographic data is carried using VOSviewer.FindingsStudy findings indicate that IJoEM has been growing for publications and citations since its inception. Four significant research directions emerged, i.e. consumer behaviour, financial markets, financial institutions and corporate governance and strategic dimensions based on cluster analysis of IJoEM's publications. The identified future research directions are focused on emergent investments opportunities, trends in behavioural finance, emerging role technology-financial companies, changing trends in corporate governance and the rising importance of strategic management in emerging markets.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of IJoEM. The study presents the key themes and trends emerging from a leading journal considered a high-quality research journal for research on emerging markets by academicians, scholars and practitioners.

Within a decade, cryptocurrencies have captured significant attention. After Bitcoin's emergence in 2008, new cryptocurrencies started to enter the financial market. We use bibliometric analysis to...

We examine the determinants of bank capital structure using a large sample of banks in the world. We find that banks determine their capital structure in much the same way as non-financial firms, except for growth opportunities. We also provide evidence that country-level factors, such as the legal system, bank-specific factors and economic conditions influence banks’ capital decisions through their impacts on bankruptcy costs, agency costs, information asymmetry and liquidity creation. The results show that, besides the direct effects, there are indirect impacts of country-level factors on the decision of bank capital. Our results have potential policy implications for the on-going regulatory reform.

In this paper, we explore how the adherence to Sharia principles in non-financial firms impacts on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aptitudes, proxied by Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores. By employing a worldwide dataset of 4,725 entities from 2002 to 2018, we find that Sharia-compliant firms are more likely to engage in sustainable and responsible practices, especially towards the environmental dimension. Evidence from a set of quasi-natural experiments, built around a range of significant natural disasters and social events, reveals a greater response of Sharia firms to CSR engagement, confirming the role played by faith-based business ethics in Islamic entities. Our results offer precious insight to policymakers and investors, suggesting that the integration of ethical and religious-oriented incentives can improve sustainability practices and resilience of firms.

While looking for safe-haven assets, the literature obtained mixed and varying results, changing from one period to the next, or one geographical area to another. Recently, this field of research grew even more, motivated by the changing environment resulting from the global financial crisis and the current COVID-19 pandemic. We compare five Islamic and five conventional leading financial indexes for the period 2004-2020, covering both global and regional data (Asia-Pacific, Europe, GCC, and the United States). By employing DCC GARCH and extended GARCH (1,1) models, we find a lower volatility and higher persistence in Islamic indexes when compared to their conventional alternatives, holding also when traditional safe-haven assets are included in comparative terms and across geographical areas. We therefore provide robust evidence on the consistent behavior of Islamic assets: Their defensive properties remain and are even stronger in the current unprecedented and ongoing crisis.

As bibliometric approaches are increasingly a focus of literature reviews across different business disciplines, we apply a bibliometric approach to a review of bibliometric studies in finance, assessing 121 bibliometric studies. We identify four literature clusters: studies focusing on assessments of literature in trending topics; analysis of papers that employ emerging econometric techniques; studies grouped around particular fundamental topics such as market dynamics, behavioral finance, and corporate governance; and studies focused on retrospective celebration of single well-known finance journals. We identify which countries, institutions, and scholars have been being particularly influential. Results suggest that the field of economics has been more comfortable publishing bibliometric studies than finance. Results also identify the mainstream finance journals that are particularly leading in publishing bibliometric studies, with results showing that these journals have particularly high-growing scholarly impact. We conclude that bibliometric studies are an important vehicle for highlighting and motivating emerging scholarship.

With many studies highlighting the heterogeneous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different commodity markets, this study provides evidence of quantile connectedness between energy, metals, and agriculture commodity markets before and during the COVID-19 outbreak. Since mean-based measures of connectedness are not necessarily suitable to measure connectedness in the crisis period, especially in the tails of the return distribution, thus in this study, we use the newly developed approach of quantile-based connectedness. The full-sample analysis results show that return shocks only propagate within the energy commodity group. The findings manifest that transmission of return spillovers is stronger in the left and right tails of the conditional return distribution. In addition, the results unveil that degree of tail-dependence between energy, metals, and agriculture commodities are time-varying. Meanwhile, our sub-sample analysis clearly shows that the commodity market return connectedness demonstrates a significant shift over time due to COVID-19 shocks. There is evidence of strong transmission of return shocks between energy, metals, and agriculture commodities during the COVID-19 fiasco. Finally, the results also illustrate that softs and livestock commodities hold significant diversification benefits for energy market investors.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a model of the Islamic sovereign wealth funds (ISWFs) based on Islamic finance principles to modify the precarious image of SWFs from Muslim countries. The Shariah laws are the cardinal direction for this study. Design/methodology/approach The authors applied a qualitative research technique that consists of three approaches: exploratory case study approach to critically examine and rank the existing status of SWFs; descriptive analysis; and content analysis to present a model of ISWFs in comparison of conventional SWFs. Findings The authors propose a model of the “Islamic Sovereign Wealth Funds” based on four key pillars: the major Shariah principles; the Islamic corporate governance framework; the Islamic transparency and disclosure framework; and the Islamic corporate social responsibility framework. Furthermore, the authors argue that the potential effect of the ISWFs on Islamic finance and economy will be positive. Research limitations/implications The model is an initial work and idea to convert SWFs from Muslim countries into ISWFs, which required an in-depth policy review by governments. Practical implications The findings of the paper are useful for policymakers and governments of the Muslim countries to overcome the issues and criticism on SWFs by converting them in ISWFs. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature related to Islamic finance and sovereign wealth fund by presenting a first model of ISWFs for Muslim countries.

Revenue diversification in banking offers opportunities and threats. Recent academic research shows that disadvantages may outweigh advantages, in terms of both volatility of profitability and bank riskiness. Literature on this topic in emerging countries and in the field of Islamic finance is limited: our aim is to empirically test if revenue diversity affects Islamic banks differently than conventional institutions. We analyze the impact of income diversification on profitability and firm-risk of banks in selected OIC countries, in the period 2007–2016, using a comprehensive dataset of 47 Islamic and 154 conventional banks, through diverse measures and econometric approaches. We find that diversification provides lower rewards for Islamic banks than conventional banks, with effects that are stronger for accounting-based measures rather than market-based metrics. Shares of non-interest income positively contribute to profitability regardless of the business model, whereas income diversification shows a not significant effect on the risk-adjusted profitability of Islamic banks. Moreover, we do not find any relationship between income diversification and stability for both conventional and Islamic banks.

The aim of this article is to investigate the motivation of CEOs to invest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. To carry out this analysis, we assess a sample of US conventional and...

This paper investigates the impact of bank risk positions on their lending outcomes during quantitative easing (QE) interventions. We find that after the first and second round of QE, banks with lower default probabilities expand lending more in comparison to their risky counterparts. However, differences were no longer relevant in the third round of QE, which occurred at a time when the banking sector health was improved relative to QE1. Our findings suggest that bank riskiness is important for the transmission of unconventional monetary policy interventions.

Using a large and extended global dataset of non-financial firms (4624 listed entities from 2002 to 2018), we provide the first empirical evidence on how ESG and Sharia screenings interact and influence market risks. We link two contrasting literature streams: the risk reduction role that the stakeholder theory attributes to ESG scores, and the opposite effect for Sharia-compliance anticipated by the portfolio and agency theories. We find that when ESG scores are not considered, Sharia certification increases risks. We also prove that engagement in sustainable activities mitigates risks for both Sharia-compliant and conventional firms. More interestingly, we show that Sharia-compliant firms obtain a larger risk-mitigating effect for greater levels of ESG scores. These results are robust to endogeneity and to extensive additional checks. Our findings validate the hypothesized complementarity between ESG and Sharia screenings.

Sukuk (Islamic bonds) are one of the Islamic finance sectors that have experienced the fastest growth during the last decade. Using a quali-quantitative approach known as meta-literature review, the aim of this paper is to survey the sukuk literature over the period 1950–2018. In total we review and analyze 80 papers through bibliometric citation analysis (using HistCite and VOSviewer software) coupled with content analysis. We show the influential aspects of the literature, such as countries, institutions, journals, authors, articles and topics. We also present the co-authorship network and identify three research streams: (1) sukuk overview and growth, (2) sukuk and finance theories, (3) sukuk and stock market behavior. Through the review and analysis of the published research on sukuk, we finally provide 11 future research questions in order to extend the research on this topic.

While the concept of sustainability is receiving growing attention from investors, firms, regulators, and researchers, little is known about its role in the insurance industry. As institutional investors and risk-absorbers from businesses and individuals, insurers adopt an operating model that is more inclined to target long-term objectives, they should be among the firms benefiting the most from engaging in sustainable practices. The existing literature provides evidence of the positive impact of sustainability on commercial stability, but this is the first study to examine this relationship for the insurance sector. Focusing on American listed insurers, we found that sustainability, proxied by Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores, enhances the stability of insurers, and that this relationship is driven by environmental and social dimensions. We did not observe a significant contribution from the governance dimension. Finally, we found a stronger association for life insurers. Our results are shown to be robust to endogeneity, enterprise heterogeneity and potential sample selection biases.

This paper investigates the effects of religious screening on payout behavior of US firms. Shariah compliant (SC) indices serve as suitable sample as they are emerging as alternative investment class in the last two decades. Through an analysis of a sample of US firms belonging to Dow Jones proprietary database for the period 2006–2018, this study provides evidence that SC firms are more prone to make total payout, cash dividends and repurchases. We use panel logistic regressions with industry and year fixed effects. The findings reveal that the drivers of higher propensity of total payout are higher profitability, higher retained earnings, lower debt capital structure and lower asset growth. The factors that contribute to likelihood of paying higher cash dividends are higher profitability, lower governance levels and lower market/book assets ratio. Moreover, better governance, lower asset growth and lower equity/assets increase the propensity of SC firms to make higher repurchases. These findings are important contribution to the Islamic corporate finance and dividend policy literature.

Takaful (Islamic Insurance) achieved only recently a significant volume of academic research, despite its importance in addressing the insurance needs of Islamic societies and economies. We provide a thorough analysis of existing contributions on Takaful through a meta-literature methodology encompassing both a bibliometric (quantitative) and content (qualitative) analysis. By reviewing 69 articles, we aim at providing a rigorous background for the Islamic finance industry, its societies and economies, academic research and policymakers. We identify and review three leading research streams on Takaful: its overview, growth paths and models; governance mechanisms; products/services and customer perception. We also identify the leading academic institutions, countries, journals, as well as authors, co-authorship networks and their position within these streams. Finally, we derive and summarize 16 leading future research questions.

We systematically reviewed the literature on corruption in international business (137 articles) for the last 17 years between 1992 and 2019. Additionally, we identified seven research streams in this growing literature: (1) the legislation against corruption, (2) the determinants of corruption, (3) combating corruption, 4) the effect of corruption on firms, (5) the political environment and corruption, (6) corruption as a challenge to existing theories of management, and (7) the effect of corruption on foreign direct investment and trade. Based on this review, we recommend that strong international laws are needed to minimize the negative impact of corruption on international business. Firms must also consider corruption when formulating strategies to increase operational efficiency and performance. Finally, corruption challenges some key assumptions of existing theories of management. Scholars need to test and expand these existing theories by considering corruption as an important issue in international business.

In this article, we conduct a meta-literature review of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), covering 184 articles from 2005 to 2019. Our meta-literature review consists of qualitative analysis of content using the NVivo software program and quantitative analyses of bibliometric citations using the HistCite and VOSviewer software programs. We identify three main research streams: (i) the overview and growth of SWFs, (ii) governance and political concerns regarding SWFs, and (iii) the investment strategies of SWFs. We identify the most influential aspects of the SWF literature, such as the leading countries, institutions, journals, authors, and articles. Finally, we propose 20 research questions based on the meta-literature review of sovereign wealth funds to set the future research agenda.

We undertake a meta-literature review on the topic of financial market integration (FMI), covering 260 articles from 1981 to 2021. Our review consists of quantitative analysis of bibliometric citations concomitant with qualitative analysis of content, towards a goal of identifying primary research streams and proposing directions for future research. We identify five research groups: (1) portfolio diversification with financial market integration; (2) general equity market integration; (3) financial market linkage with respect to crises and events; (4) time-varying financial market integration; and (5) co-movements and spillovers between commodities and financial markets; as well as present a wide array of future research directions. We conduct an extensive review of FMI literature, answering several questions: (1) What is the domain of FMI research?; (2) What are the influential aspects of top journals and authors, and the characteristics of the most studied topics?; (3) What are the past and current key research streams in FMI literature?; and (4) What are the substantial future relevant research questions to explore regarding FMI? Given the ongoing attention on financial market integration by both academicians and policy makers, our results should be of great interest.

Based on a sample of 54 Islamic indices over the period 2007–2014, we investigate the effect of Shariah board members' educational background on Islamic indices' risk and return characteristics via the screening criteria. Using a capital asset pricing model benchmark analysis, we assess the sensitivity of Islamic indices to their conventional peers in terms of beta and derive a measure of return (Jensen's alpha). First, we observe that the higher the number of members in common among the boards, the higher the risk–return profile of Islamic indices. Second, commonalities among board members lead to standardization of the screening criteria and to similar Islamic indices' performance. Third, we show that different betas across providers depend on the screening criteria, while the economic educational background of board members affects performance in terms of Jensen's alpha. Our study aims at contributing to the governance literature related to board composition and its importance as a possible driver of performance. In addition, given the impressive growth that Islamic finance has experienced during the last decade, this topic is of great interest to the asset management industry.

The recent wave of liberalization in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has opened up a debate on the role of Islamic finance in the financial development of an economy. Using a comprehensive dataset of 43 Islamic and 49 conventional banks for the period 2007–2015, in this paper, we investigate the impact of trade and financial openness on financial development in the GCC region. We find that trade and financial openness have a positive effect on the profitability of both banking systems, while the interaction term of openness is negative for the profitability of Islamic banks. Moreover, trade and financial openness affect Islamic banks differently than conventional banks. Notably, we unveil that trade and financial openness decrease the loan volume of Islamic banks but increase their stability.

Shariah-compliant firms (SCF) cannot use debt to mitigate agency problems, and in this scenario the dividend payout policy becomes a highly important tool of corporate governance for shariah-compliant investors. This chapter highlights the dividend payout behaviour of SCF by comparing them to conventional firms. We performed a detailed review of existing literature and also calculated descriptive statistics, using various specifications using a sample of representative SCF and market firms for United States (US) market from 2006–2015, in order to investigate if the dividend payout behaviour of SCF differs from the market. However, we did not find any notable difference. Our results also showed no difference in payout decisions at different levels of idiosyncratic risk. In summary, we observed that firms with good governance, large asset size, higher profitability, higher Retained Earnings/Total Earnings (RE/TE) and lower market–book ratio, lower idiosyncratic risk and lower financial constraints, on average, pay higher dividends. The results remain similar across both kinds of firms.

The aim of this paper is to provide a thorough assessment of Islamic banks’ (IBs) liquidity risk compared to conventional banks (CBs). We firstly investigate the relationship between liquidity and credit risk. Employing a simultaneous structural equation approach, on a comprehensive dataset of 52 IBs and CBs, from selected Organization of Islamic Cooperation Countries for the period of 2007–2015, we find that credit risk and liquidity risk have negative relationship. We then investigate the relationship between liquidity risk and stability, finding a negative relationship just for IBs. We finally show that Islamic banks are better than conventional in managing risks.

This paper reviews the empirical literature on the contemporary issues of Islamic investments and highlights the future research directions. The growing literature during the last several years and the penetration of Islamic investments beyond the Muslim majority countries motivate us to review the empirical studies in the area. We therefore focus our literature review on mutual funds, sukuk and equity investments, analysing 81 articles from the most important journals dealing with the topic. The mixed findings in this area help the understanding of professionals not familiar with Islamic investment to identify the trends of the literature for important decisions. Our results have also important financial implications for asset managers willing to include Islamic financial instruments into a well‐diversified portfolio.