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The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of economic and financial crimes on the economies of emerging and developing countries.

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines and meta-analysis of economics research reporting guidelines were used to conduct a quantitative synthesis of empirical evidence on the impact of economic and financial crimes in developing and emerging countries.

A total of 103 studies were searched, out of which 6 met the selection/eligibility criteria of this systematic review. The six selected studies indicated that economic and financial crimes have a negative impact in emerging and developing countries.

To the best knowledge of the authors, no published systematic review of the impact of economic and financial crimes in developing countries has been conducted to date.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the perceptions of the grassroots on the impact of combative policy measures, strategies and programs introduced by the government and the civil society to reduce persistent occurrences of bribery practices in Nigeria.

Multi-stage or cluster sampling was used to acquire the data for this paper via survey questionnaire administered to the grassroots in Abuja, Nigeria. The data set is used to assess the impact of the various policy measures, strategies and programs on the persistence of bribery practices in Nigeria. The multiple linear regression method was used to estimate the data generated from 836 responses in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.

The result of the estimations indicates that the respondents perceived that some of the policy measures, strategies and programs introduced have reduced persistence of bribery practices in Nigeria, whereas others have remained ineffective in reducing the persistence of bribery practices in Nigeria.

Previous studies on the impact of anti-bribery policy measures, strategies and programs were largely based on the perceptions of international institutions and business executives; this study appears to be the pioneer to focus on the perceptions of the grassroots in Abuja, Nigeria.

This paper aims to examine the impact of interest rate liberalization on economic growth and the relevance of corruption in the five selected sub-Saharan African countries.

The study used the modified version of Driscoll and Kraay’s model by Hoechle, which solved the effects of cross-sectional dependence and heteroscedasticity.

The findings reveal a positive impact of the index on economic growth, and it was found that foreign direct investment (FDI) and credit to private sector by banks (CPSB) all stimulate economic growth. The interaction terms of corruption with FDI and CPSB indicate negative effects that show how corruption erodes the benefits of liberalization. Finally, the paper recommends the pursuit of appropriate policies with the sole aim of eradicating corruption and providing a conducive environment for business.

The paper developed a composite domestic financial liberalization index to capture the timing and essential dimensions of the reform process. The study investigates the effect of interest rate liberalization on economic growth and the relevance of corruption. Most of the recent and past studies only examined the impact of interest rate reforms on growth without investigating the relevance of corruption.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test persistence of bribery transactions in West African countries in spite of combative policy measures put in place by various governments in the sub-continent.

Data for this paper is obtained from the data set of Trace International’s Bribery Risk Matrix covering 2016 to 2018. The matrix is used to allow firms to determine risks associated with contact with government officials in a particular country. The data set is used to test this paper’s hypotheses. The generalize methods of moments (GMM) was used to estimate panel data of 16 West African Countries in STATA 14.0.

The result of the estimations reveals that in spite of combative policy measures put in place and millions of dollars spent, bribery is on the increase in West African countries.

Prior studies tend to focus on prevalence and pervasiveness of bribery transactions across the globe. This paper is one of the few that focuses on persistence of bribery particularly in West African countries.

This study aims to examine the effect of domestic financial deregulation on economic growth in five selected sub-Saharan African nation (SSA). The paper also explored the interaction effect of domestic financial deregulation and corruption on growth.

The paper used Driscoll and Kraay standard errors based on the pooled ordinary least squares, which is robust to heteroskedasticity, cross-sectional dependence and autocorrelation.

The outcome indicates that domestic financial liberalization has accelerated growth in SSA economies. Similarly, evidence reveals that foreign direct investment and credit to the private sector by banks accelerate growth. However, evidence indicates that labour and capital negate growth. Also, the interaction term for domestic financial liberalization and corruption shows a negative influence on growth. The study, therefore, recommends that well-tailored policy design and strategy be implemented to provide a smooth and conducive business environment for investors.

Numerous studies have analysed the influence of financial deregulation on growth; however, none have examined the effects of domestic financial deregulation on growth in the context of SSA. Also, no studies have explored the interaction effect of domestic financial deregulation and corruption on growth.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to verify the quality of the survey instrument of office investors in rationalising green office building investment in the city of Kuala Lumpur using the Rasch measurement method. It investigates whether the quality of the data obtained from the survey is statistically acceptable and aims to ensure that the scales used are based on the same measurement model and fit with the Rasch model.

In achieving this objective, a questionnaire survey was developed consisting of six sections. Some 394 questionnaires were distributed, and in total, 106 responses were received from office investors who own and lease office buildings in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. The data obtained from this survey were entered into Rasch software, and the analysis aims to consider three main parameters, specifically: point measure correlation 0.32 < x < 0.8; outfit mean squared 0.5 < y < 1.5; and outfit z-standard −2 < z < 2. It also provides a separable or independent measurement instrument for the parameters of the research object.

The analysis performed using the Rasch model confirmed that all items in the questionnaire construct were statistically reliable and valid. The Rasch analysis consists of, namely, the summary statistics; item unidimensionality to provide interval measures of item endorsements and fit statistics on persons involved; and items for further investigation. Unidimensionality, as a pre-requisite to the Rasch analysis, provides statistics on whether the items are on the same latent variable intended by the instrument. The results were also supported by Cronbach’s alpha at 0.91 which showed excellent reliability for person data. The results showed that the summary statistics, unidimensionality and item fit analysis were excellent.

This paper introduces the application of the Rasch analysis as a provision for a new dimension and technique in examining data reliability and validity of the instrument.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a comprehensive hierarchical model of behavioural intentions in the Malaysian retail banking industry.

The data were analysed using EFA, CFA and structural modelling.

The findings illustrate that customer satisfaction is the most important determinant of behavioural intentions, followed by switching costs, corporate image and perceived value. Service quality is indirectly related to behavioural intentions and customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between the two constructs. Customer satisfaction is strongly influenced by service quality, corporate image and perceived value. Service quality is also an antecedent of perceived value, corporate image and switching costs. The empirical results also support a hierarchical and multidimensional approach for conceptualising and measuring customers’ perceptions of service quality.

The comprehensive hierarchical model developed in this research can be used as framework for additional studies on the banking industry.

The findings provide Malaysian bank managers with empirically-based insights into behavioural intentions and offer guidelines for assessing and improving service quality.

This is the first study that uses comprehensive hierarchical modelling to synthesise the effects of service quality, customer satisfaction, perceived value, corporate image and switching costs on the behavioural intentions of retail bank customers.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of competition in the Malaysian Islamic banking industry and the market structure of the industry by focusing on the particular impact created by the entrance of fully fledged foreign Islamic banks plus the introduction of Islamic subsidiaries of existing conventional banks in the country (domestic and foreign ownership).

Using a sample of 16 Islamic banks in the country that operated between 2008 and 2015, this paper measures the competition among the Islamic banks using the Panzar-Rosse Model and by looking at the market structure of the industry using the k-bank concentration ratio and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index.

The study found that between 2008 and 2015, the Malaysian Islamic banking industry operated in monopolistic competition conditions with a moderately concentrated market structure. The introduction of foreign Islamic banks caused the market structure to become more competitive and less concentrated by comparing the results that include foreign Islamic banks against the results generated with a subsample of domestic Islamic banks only. Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM’s) financial reform and the liberalisation of the financial system were proven to induce competition making the financial system more resilient, competitive and dynamic. The Islamic banks have recorded consistently increased annual performance with the under-performing Islamic banks catching up on the top performers.

Very few research studies have focused on the market structure and competition of the Islamic banking industry in Malaysia, especially using recent financial data; this study will contribute to filling the existing gap.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between insurance and economic growth for six (developed, emerging and developing) countries over the period of 1980 to 2015.

The study applies panel auto-regressive distributed lagged (PMG/ARDL) method to examine long-term and short-term relationship between insurance and economic growth for the USA, the UK, China, India, Malaysia and Pakistan.

The authors concluded that there exists a positive and significant relationship between life insurance, non-life insurance, trade openness, stock-market development and economic growth in the long run as p-value is less than 5 per cent. This study also found a significant relationship between employment rate, banking development and economic growth for the long run but the direction is negative. Foreign direct investment shows an insignificant relationship with economic growth in the long run. The results highlighted a significant and positive relationship between non-life insurance and economic growth in the short-run for the USA, the UK, China, India, Malaysia and Pakistan. Moreover, the relationship between life insurance and economic growth is positive and significant for India, Pakistan and the UK. Results reveal a significant but a negative relationship between life insurance and economic growth for the USA, China and Malaysia.

Analysis is performed for only six countries and results of these six might not represent the whole world.

This research would help policymaker to consider wider aspects of insurance rather than considering it complementary service industry.

Every individual, today, spends a huge amount of funds to purchase insurance. He or she should be aware of the wider social impact of their spending apart from risk transferring.

Researchers recently shifted their focus to investigate the relationship between insurance and economic growth but the topic is still lacking sufficient literature and various knowledge gaps. The study is an attempt to contribute in terms of refinement of the already existing body of knowledge and to fill literature gap. In addition, apart from the insurance–economy relationship, very few empirical studies used financial, banking and stock market along with insurance, proxies to measure accurate insurance contribution. Another element of originality lies in the comparative analysis of developed, emerging and developing countries.

Sharia compliance states that the compliant company operates not only under regulations but also to the restrictions and permission of Islam. This study aims to reveal whether Sharia compliance enhances the financial reporting quality.

The sample is constructed from 15 Muslim majority countries, 2,300 companies for the periods between 2005 and 2017 with 23,810 firm*year observations. Financial reporting quality is measured with discretionary accruals and audit aggressiveness. Discretionary accruals is the absolute of Kothari, Leone and Wasley’s (2005) “performance matched discretionary accruals model.” Audit aggressiveness is calculated with Gul, Wu and Yang’s (2013) model.

This study reveals the behavioral differences in financial reporting quality between Sharia-compliant and non-compliant companies. According to the analyzes, Sharia compliance increases the financial reporting quality by decreasing the discretionary accruals and audit aggressiveness. This result is supported by the robustness tests.

Sharia compliance is not limited to business activity, financial restrictions and supervisory board for Sharia-compliant companies. It also enhances the companies’ financial reporting quality. Robustness analysis also showed that the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) increases the financial reporting quality by reducing discretionary accruals and audit aggressiveness.

This study contributes to the accounting literature by providing an insight on the use of Islamic financial instruments. The empirical results also show that the use of IFRS and Islamic financial instruments decreases the discretionary accruals and audit aggressiveness.