Financial Economics

Nurul Hizetie Mohamed Nor · Anuar Nawawi · Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin ·Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities ·2018

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between audit characteristics and firm investment efficiency level. Audit characteristics have been characterized using audit committee (AC) independence and external auditor choice. Top 200 Malaysian listed companies based on market capitalization were selected as a sample. Binomial logistic regression analysis was employed to test the hypotheses for 3 years, that is, 2009, 2010, and 2011. The statistical results show no relationship between AC independence and investment inefficiency, while auditor choice was shown to be positively significant only in 1 year of the study, but was not significant in the other 2 years of study. The results provide further confirmation of the role of corporate governance in enhancing the investment performance of the company. This study provides an indicator to shareholders and investors that a company with strong governance structure will likely make better investment decision. Managers under strong governance are prevented from taking an aggressive investment risk approach that may result in overinvestment. In addition, the company will carefully plan to have an adequate capital so that a good opportunity investment will not being passed due to insufficient financing that will result underinvestment. This study is original, as it focuses on the direct relationship between corporate governance mechanism and firm investment efficiency level that is scarce in the literature, with a special focus on emerging markets in the process of developing their best governance practices.

J.S. Keshminder · Gurmit Kaur Bariam Singh · Zainora AB. Wahid · Mohammad Syafiq Abdullah ·Malaysian Journal of Consumer and Family Economics ·2019

Green Sukuk serves as an alternative form of finance which is equipped with both climate mitigation and Shariah compliance features compared to conventional finance. Acknowledging the superiority of green Sukuk to raise funds to mitigate climate change, the World Bank took the lead to promote it globally by making Malaysia the premier green Sukuk hub. This study seeks to assess the development of green Sukuk from the aspect of issuance and Shariah principle used in Malaysia since its inception in 2014. The study reveals that the development in the green Sukuk market is slow but is robust in moving from the energy industry to the building industry, while Shariah contracts used are based on the issuers' underlying assets. The study concludes that the green Sukuk market is still small and liquidity constraint makes it difficult for investors to gain access. For the government to increase green Sukuk issuance, information about the performance, challenges, risks, and opportunities in the realm of green Sukuk must be made available to both issuers and investors.

Catherine S F Ho · Nur Hazimah Amran · Irfan Syarafuddin B Ab Aziz · Wahida Ahmad ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2021 ·JEL: G11, G12, G15, G23

Financial crises and the geopolitical issues around the world have caused much volatility in returns and market uncertainty. This trend of higher uncertainty in risk and return causes vast changes in stock and investment values, which caused investors scrabbling to maintain the value of their wealth. It is therefore vital that investors understand and compare investment alternatives in order to maximize return. The purpose of this research is to analyze the performance of Islamic and conventional mutual funds and provide a comparison of fund performances to enable investors to make informed decisions. Mutual fund data from 2013 to 2017 for Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, the two largest Islamic fund markets are compiled and risk-adjusted performance statistics applied to arrive at measurement of performances. Although fund performance comparison is a wellresearched area, this study contributes to the literature in terms of a comprehensive investigation of various types of Islamic funds with an in-depth evaluation of different investment time horizons. Empirical evidence on risk-adjusted performance comparison indicates that Malaysian conventional equity, mixed asset and money market funds for all 1, 3 and 5-year horizons outperform their Islamic counterparts. Similarly, Saudi Arabian equity and mixed asset funds also outperform their Islamic counterparts for all time horizons. On the contrary, the Saudi Islamic money market funds outperform their conventional partners. Cross country comparison confirms that Malaysian funds achieve superior performance except for money market funds which underperform their Saudi counterparts. In summary, current evidence concludes that, depending on the investment horizon and risk appetite, investors are better off investing in the appropriate fund.