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Urban population growth has increased housing density, which has expanded the construction of low-cost low-rise residential in urban areas. Good building performance and effective low-cost low-rise residential quality lead to higher user satisfaction and improve building sustainability. This study aims to focus on the factors influencing the sustainability of low-cost low-rise residential in the West Malaysia urban area to assess resident satisfaction.

A mixed-mode approach with both qualitative and quantitative were used in this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 stakeholders to identify the common factors influencing sustainability in low-cost low-rise residential. Subsequently, questionnaire surveys were formed and distributed among building users to determine the satisfaction level with low-cost low-rise residential building performance.

The finding demonstrates that accessibility is the key factor to achieving sustainability of low-cost low-rise residential. The finding also related to the factor that influences both stakeholders and building user satisfaction levels. This study also identifies key areas that require attention to improve user satisfaction with building sustainability and building performance of low-cost low-rise residential.

This study aims to determine stakeholder and building user satisfaction levels in relation to the sustainable building factor. A few indicators have been set up to identify the factors that most influence the sustainability and environment of low-cost low-rise residential buildings. Each subchapter has a few recommendations to improve the performance of low-cost low-rise residential. Each of the factors mentioned is related to social, economic and environmental sustainability. In addition, the study discovered a strong connection between low-cost low-rise residential performance and user satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the connectedness across a variety of Sukuk and conventional bond indices and the implications for optimal asset allocation for the period January 1, 2010–April 30, 2020.

The data set consists of five major Sukuk (Dow Jones Sukuk, Thompson Reuters BPA Malaysia Sukuk, Indonesia Government Sukuk, S&P MENA Sukuk and Tadawul Sukuk and Bonds Index) and five conventional bond indexes, one for developed (USA) and four for emerging markets (Malaysia, Indonesia, Africa and Qatar). This study investigates the connectedness and volatility spillover effects across the aforementioned indices, by following the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) approach, based on the time-varying parameter vector autoregressive (TVP-VAR) model. In addition, this paper provides optimal hedge ratios and portfolio weights for investors.

The empirical results show that Sukuk and conventional bond markets are highly integrated and that total connectedness exhibits sensitivity to exogenous shocks. The Dow Jones and the Malaysian Sukuk indices are the primary shock transmitters to other markets. However, the weak volatility spillovers between the Dow Jones and conventional bonds suggest that opportunities for optimal asset allocation may in fact exist. The highest (lowest) hedging effectiveness can be achieved by taking a short position in Malaysian (Qatarian) bonds.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the largest sample taken into account to investigate the connectedness between Sukuk and conventional bonds.

This chapter investigates the financial performance and technical efficiency of the 26 listed firms in the services sector of the Philippine Stock Exchange over the period 1998–2007, using the DuPont system and the super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (SE-DEA). Empirical findings revealed a negative return on equity for the sector and the presence of outliers in the sample. We also verified a robust significant association between the financial and technical performances of the sector.

The chapter offers new significant contributions to knowledge in terms of the multidimensional performance evaluation and the efficiency of the stock market, especially in developing economies, which has not been a well-researched area. Managerial implications are also identified for the improvement of the firms’ management and the usefulness of the SE-DEA model in performance management.

Cost of construction of residential properties as well as its subsequent rent trends remain a major challenge to stakeholders in the property rental markets of emerging economies. This study examined the relationship between housing construction costs and house rents fluctuations in Osogbo, Nigeria, to provide information for informed investment decisions.

The authors conducted a survey, where three sets of questionnaires were administered on building contractors; estate surveyors and valuers and private residential property owners. The data required comprise the estimated average construction costs and average market rents for two and three-bedroom bungalows in the study area from 2008 to 2018. These data were respectively sourced from all the 15 firms of building contractors and 25 firms of estate surveyors and valuers in Osogbo, Nigeria. Stratified random sampling was employed to select 180 property owners from three medium-density residential districts of Osogbo. Secondary data on macroeconomic variables were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria. Data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools.

The authors found a significant positive relationship (0.749) between construction costs and house rents trends; both variables maintained ascending trends. Construction costs and house rents inflation rates exhibited random fluctuations with the former having a higher mean inflation rate (10.47%). However, the difference was not statistically significant (p-value = 0.317 > 0.05). Respondents identified consumer price index (CPI) inflation among other macroeconomic variables as the strongest predictor of both construction costs and house rents fluctuations. However, evidence from further analysis of the time series suggested otherwise.

The result confirms construction cost as one of the vital supply factors of the housing market, which is often pass through to house rents. The positive relationship between construction costs and house rents trends should trigger new development which, will, in turn, allow rental housing investments to expand into new areas with prospects for profits that could be earned by domestic and foreign investors.

This study to the best knowledge of the researchers is the first to relate housing construction cost to house rent in Osogbo, Nigeria; thereby adding to the body of knowledge in this field.

Procurement by executing agencies, statutory organisations or departments in developing countries responsible for procurement against aid‐funded projects, has received little attention from academic researchers. This study found that executing agencies’ buying decisions are primarily influenced by economic criteria, with most emphasis on price and timely delivery. The reliability of the supplier is the next most important aspect. Suppliers need to design their offers to these organisational buyers, with due consideration of these criteria. Along with these, the offer also needs to project the supplier's proven ability to supply quality products.

This study aims to explain the Sukuk structures individually by highlighting the key differences and commonalities in their influential aspects. It also compares the core aspects of Sukuk literature with conventional bonds and suggests the point of differences between them.

This study uses a quali-quantitative approach with the help of segmented bibliometric analysis to describe core differences and commonalities in various Sukuk structures in terms of core authors, countries, sources, affiliation, documents and keywords. In addition, it deploys “biblioshiny” from R-package “bibliometrix 3.0” to identify key influential aspects of different Sukuk instruments.

Results reported that Malaysia is the core contributing country in Sukuk publications and the center of author correspondence. There is a structural difference among various Sukuk instruments. The significant literature commonalities in Ijarah, Mudarabah, Musharakah and Murabahah Sukuk affiliations and globally cited journal articles are also found. However, the influential aspects of Sukuk compared with conventional bonds are different from other Sukuk literature. It also conducted a keyword analysis to report significant themes in the literature.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge as it helps investors to understand the shariah permissibility and investment supremacy of various Sukuk alternatives. Investors, policymakers, scholars and researchers should understand the dynamics of multiple Sukuk structures and their Shari’ah permissibility. This study significantly elaborates on this objective.

The financial system plays an essential role in facilitating the intermediation process for economic growth. Policymakers stress on achieving a well-developed and regulated financial system to achieve economic development and resiliency. Using data from the State of Qatar, this paper aims to examine the impact of financial development indicator on economic growth; the impact of financial development indicator on hydrocarbon and nonhydrocarbon sector; the impact of Islamic banking on hydrocarbon and nonhydrocarbon economic growth.

The research uses quarterly data from 2007 to 2019 and adopts autoregressive distributed lag cointegration techniques to test the long- and short-run dynamic relationship between various measures of financial development and economic growth.

The results present evidence of long-term cointegration between overall financial development indicator and economic growth. Furthermore, the authors document the existence of long-term relationship between financial development and nonhydrocarbon sector. However, there is a lack of evidence on the long-run relationship between financial development and the hydrocarbon sector. Notwithstanding, Islamic banking contributes to overall economic development, as well as to the nonhydrocarbon sector.

This paper offers policymakers with insights to evaluate measures to diversify the economy. It also assists decision-makers in promoting Islamic finance, particularly to the banking sector as a vital contributor to economic growth.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to evaluate financial development and economic growth for the case of Qatar in light of recent developments in Islamic finance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore Islamic borrowing at the local level in redevelopment authorities in the USA through an ijara and esham framework.

A hypothetical example is approached with a real redevelopment authority in the City of Pompano Beach, Florida. Actual data from past borrowing in a tax increment financing district are compared to an Islamic financing approach to test for competitiveness to a conventional approach.

It was found that when incorporating a crowdsourced option along with an ijara and esham approach, the returns on investment are higher than for a conventional approach. The risk is higher, but the returns are also higher which possibly increases the incentive to invest in these options.

This scenario is only hypothetical and based on many assumptions. A real-world application of the approach would have to be attempted to confidently determine its viability.

The potential competitiveness of this financing approach as well as its higher sustainability makes this a favorable approach for local redevelopment authorities to implement for needed money for infrastructure projects in blighted areas of the city. It is also of interest to Muslim countries that are devolving authority to their local governments.

This paper considers an alternative approach to tax increment financing which relies on a revenue sharing arrangement called an esham–ijara and esham–sukuk risk-sharing structure in Islamic financing terminology. There is currently very little discussion of esham in Islamic finance and no discussion of the application of Islamic finance to local economic development enterprises.

This chapter compares the returns performance of the Islamic mutual funds (IMFs) with that of conventional mutual fund (CMF). It covers both pre- and post-ASEAN financial crisis and global financial crisis data for an overall sample of 128 IMFs and 350 CMFs. It also covers two market cycles from January 1995 to December 1998 and from January 2005 to December 2008.

The net raw returns of all expenses and market risk-adjusted return performance measurements are employed to examine the portfolios’ performance, and to capture the difference movement of the funds based on the particular market trend.

We observed that on average both portfolios outperform the market return. In general, average returns performance of IMFs is not better than the CMFs during bullish and bearish market trend periods. However, the empirical results based on time-series regression model reveal that the IMFs portfolio slightly outperform the conventional counterparts.

The study would benefit the investors and market players to consider IMFs in their portfolio selection, if in future such an expected event may occur.

The study provides insights to regulators and market players who plan to access investment plan in an emerging market, particularly in Malaysia.

This study aims to discuss the determinants of Islamic banks’ efficiency. It tries to explore the source of Islamic banks’ inefficiencies to propose solutions to guarantee an acceptable level of technical efficiency of such banks in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

To achieve this objective, the authors use a parametric approach, especially, the stochastic frontier approach, using production function and panel data analysis. The authors apply a package Frontier 4.1 for the estimation process, which is composed of two principal steps. In the first step, the authors estimate Islamic banks’ efficiency scores in different GCC countries based on an output distance function. In the second step, the analysis highlights the impact of managerial-specific education on Islamic accounting and finance, scarcity of Sharīʿah scholars, the board independence and chief executive officers’ (CEOs) duality on GCC Islamic banks’ efficiency.

This study’s results document that managerial-specific education on Islamic accounting and finance and the board of directors’ composition, especially, the board’s independence, can largely explain the technical efficiency scores of Islamic banks in GCC countries. Especially, the authors find evidence that managerial-specific education is negatively associated with the inefficiency term. The coefficient of the Sharīʿah scholar’s variable has a positive sign indicating that the more there are Sharīʿah experts, the more the bank is efficient. In addition, CEOs’ duality seems to have no significant effect on GCC Islamic banks’ efficiency.

GCC Islamic banks need to improve the presence of independent members on the board of directors. In addition, these banks are invited to count more on Sharīʿah auditors and educated staff characterized by a high level of competency in the domain of Islamic banking and finance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that highlights the effect of managerial-specific education in Islamic accounting and finance and scarcity of Sharīʿah scholars on Islamic banks’ efficiency.