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This paper empirically analyses the role of Islamic banking in financial intermediation costs as measured by net interest margins for a leading dual banking country, Malaysia. Controlling for theoretically motivated determinants of the margins, the paper compares the interest/financing margins of conventional and Islamic banks and examines the impacts of Islamic banking presence on bank margins. The analysis provides evidence of the higher margins of Islamic banks compared to those of conventional banks. Further, the difference in bank margins between the two types of banks can be attributed to differences in market power, operating costs, and diversification. Finally, Islamic banking presence or penetration, as represented by the ratio of Islamic financing to aggregate bank credit/financing and, alternatively, the share of Islamic banking assets, is robustly associated with lower bank margins, on average. These results bear important implications for the development of the Islamic banking industry and in fostering the efficient allocation of financial resources by the banking system.

This study examines the role of financial development in influencing income inequality in Malaysia over the period of 1980-2000. The empirical results based on ARDL bounds test indicate that financial market development is, at best, very weak and statistically insignificant in reducing income inequality in Malaysia. The evidence is valid for a variety of financial indicators, including the banking sector, the stock market and financial aggregate variables. The evidence also highlights that besides various governmenti¯s development programs, efforts should also concentrate on improving institutional quality, economic development and maintaining low inflation in its attempt to combat income inequality.

Using autoregressive distributed lag bound test framework, the dynamics of financial development, economic growth, energy prices and energy consumption was investigated in Nigeria for the period of 1972Q1-2011Q4. The finding signifies that variables were cointegrated as null hypothesis was rejected at 1% level of significance. In the short-run financial development has significant negative impact on fossil fuel consumption, economic growth also shows the same relationship. However, energy prices have positive and significant influence on the consumption of fossil fuel. In the long-run however, financial development has insignificant negative impact on energy consumption, and economic growth has negative but significant impact on energy consumption, while energy prices has positive and significant impact on fossil fuel consumption. The policy recommendation remains that Nigerian authority should try to explore other alternative sources of energy in order to curb the adverse effect of fossil fuel consumption on the financial market and overall economic growth. Exploring the potentials of green energy is paramount in Nigeria which is more eco-friendly and contain less carbon emissions.