Search

The price of carbon emitted by thermal plants has always been a favorite topic of researchers and policy makers. A substitute price for CO2 is calculated in this study based on real-time payments through government tariffs. These payments aim to mitigate CO2 emission caused by unregulated electricity generation. The total CO2 produced by the thermal plants of 10 European countries is shown in this study. The government's payment for each technology is utilized to clear the final CO2 abatement cost. The substitute price of avoiding CO2 emission (SPAC) for each technology and country is estimated. SPAC is basically the price that each country pays to avoid producing CO2. The conducted survey shows that the SPAC of the 10 European countries ranges from 63 to 2951 Euros depending on the type of technology used and the country's policy. Results confirm a competitive payment by governments only for German and UK hydro and UK wind technologies. Comparison of the countries’ payments for renewable energies and CO2 market price shows that governments incurred an inefficient payment of liquidity as a carbon mitigation policy.

Using a sample of 291 banks from 35 OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) member Muslim countries with 2078 bank year observations from 2003 to 2010, we analyze if bank earning management in terms of Loan Loss Provisioning (LLP hereafter) is affected by the banking nature whether Islamic or conventional, by the bank accounting standards whether rule-based local Generally accepted accounting principles (here after local GAAP) or principle-based International Financial Reporting Standards (hereafter IFRS), and by the bank listing status. We argue that Islamic banks may exhibit lower signs of earning management, as the Sharia’h Supervisory Boards (SSB hereafter) in Islamic banks may work as an additional tier into the governance system. On the use of accounting standard, we argue that banks using IFRS standard may exhibit lower evidence of earning management, as IFRS requires managers to disclose more accounting information compared to local GAAP. We report mixed evidence supporting these arguments.

This paper proposes a model to study the arrangement of Islamic project finance with the participation of the government as provider of loan guarantees. The entrepreneur (musharakah) initiates a project and raises funds by issuing Islamic profit sharing debt instruments (mudarabah). The government intervenes in providing financial guarantees in order to enhance the creditworthiness and increase the debt capacity of the project. Our work raises several policy implications related to the structuring of Islamic project finance and the participation of both government and multilateral public agencies such as the Islamic Development Bank. It provides a unifying framework for the improvement of access to funds for Islamic projects and gives a rationale for the government intervention in the arrangement of those projects.