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The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare the dynamic leverage policies of Islamic and conventional banks within selected Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries. The study specifically focuses on the concepts of leverage procyclicality and prospect theory.

To achieve the research objectives, the study uses data from three distinct periods: Crisis I (2007–2009), Crisis II (2011–2012) and Crisis III (2020). The analysis uses dynamic panel-data regression, using the generalized method of moments (GMM) technique.

The research findings indicate that both Islamic and conventional banks demonstrate leverage procyclicality. Interestingly, Islamic banks exhibit weaker leverage procyclicality during normal conditions but display stronger procyclicality during crises compared to their conventional counterparts. The application of prospect theory reveals that both bank types exhibit risk-taking or risk-averse behavior through leverage under certain financial and market performance measures as the first-level domain of the gain-vs-loss condition. Furthermore, during crises (as the second-level domain of the normal-vs-crisis condition), both Islamic and conventional banks experience heightened leverage. Notably, Islamic banks, owing to their lower risk exposure and greater shock resilience, demonstrate lesser risk-taking behavior through leverage than conventional banks, both during periods of underperformance and worsening conditions amid crises. These findings validate the extension of prospect theory's applicability in a two-level domain perspective. The dynamic nature of leverage policy, being procyclical and adhering to prospect theory, also varies following different crises specifically.

The study's limitations include the unequal crisis periods (Crises I, II and III), leading to an imbalanced examination of their effects, certain financial and market performance metrics that fail to corroborate the expected hypotheses and the limited generalizability of findings beyond the selected OIC countries.

Understanding the intricate dynamics and behavioral aspects of leverage policy for both Islamic and conventional banks, particularly during crisis scenarios, proves crucial for reviewing banking regulations, making informed financial decisions and managing risks effectively.

This study enriches the current knowledge by presenting two key points. First, it highlights the dynamic nature of leverage procyclicality in Islamic banks, showing a change from weaker procyclicality in normal conditions to stronger procyclicality during crises compared to conventional banks. Second, it expands the application of prospect theory by introducing a dual-level domain context. Examining the comparative leverage policies of Islamic and conventional banks during different crises within OIC countries provides novel insights into leverage procyclicality and behavioral responses.

Despite the extensive debate on the impact of bank competition on risk-taking, there is no evidence of its role in procyclicality of loan-loss provisions (LLPs). The purpose of this study is to find out what is the role of competition in the procyclicality of LLPs.

Using over 70,000 bank-level observations in 103 countries in 2004–2015 and the LLPs model, this study interacts competition with business cycle to check what is the effect of competition on procyclicality of LLPs.

This study finds that intense competition is associated with more procyclicality of LLPs. Increased procyclicality of LLPs in a more competitive environment is binding for high-income countries. The opposite effect is shown for low-income countries.

Future research can be extended by testing the role of additional factors – such as regulations, supervision or institutional protection of shareholders' rights, in the association between procyclicality and competition.

The main message of this paper is that the competitive environment changes the procyclicality of LLPs. The results are important from the point of view of the COVID-19 pandemic because government interventions during lockdowns will affect competition in the banking industry and in other industries of the economy.

This paper contributes to the extant research in three dimensions. First, it shows that competition is an important factor behind procyclicality of LLPs. Second, it adds to the research on the links between competition and financial stability. Third, it shows that the link between competition and procyclicality of LLPs depends on the economic development of the country in which the banks are located.

The purpose of this paper is to check if there is a procyclical lending behaviour in dual banking systems of the Golf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The study also tries to control for the role of Islamic banks in amplifying or mitigating the procyclicality of dual banking systems.

Estimation of a dynamic panel model using annual observations on a sample of 81 banks based in the GCC countries between 2005 and 2018. The study uses two business cycle indicators as dependent variables, namely, output gap and oil price gap.

The system generalilzed method of moments (GMM) estimator and robustness checks confirm the procyclical lending pattern of dual banking systems in the GCC. Estimation outputs also indicate that this procyclicality is more pronounced during economic slowdowns. However, it is found that Islamic banks’ lending is less procyclical, giving support for the stability view of Islamic banking systems. The authors think that the implementation and conduct of macroprudential policies are very challenging for banking authorities when Islamic banks and conventional banks operate under the same regulatory framework.

The research paper may suffer from some limitations. Indeed, exploring panel data instead of country-case data may lead to a problem of heterogeneity that may underpin the credibility of the econometrical estimations. To deal with this problem by introducing a set of bank-specific and time-specific dummies. Furthermore, small N samples (N = number of individuals) may affect the reliability of the tests for the validity of instruments and autocorrelation used under the GMM estimator, leading to inefficient results. Consequently, the number of selected banks is extended as much as possible (81 banks), becoming important comparing to the time dimension of the panel.

Policymakers and regulators are incited to embed the perspectives of Islamic finance regarding lending cyclicality in dual banking systems, which promote the efficiency of resource allocation to the financing of assets and by consequence enabling financial stability. The stability view of the Islamic banking system could prompt policymakers and regulators to encourage the implementation and development of Islamic banks.

The present paper tries to overcome the lack of empirical studies on the procyclicality of dual banking. The study contributes to this novel literature in two ways. First, it focuses exclusively on GCC banking systems. In fact, compared to other emerging markets, business cycles characterizing GCC are specific because of the role played by the oil and gas revenues in the economic growth and financial system is crucial. Second, this paper brings into evidence the procyclicality of GCC banking systems also when the oil price is taken as a business cycle indicator.

This study aims to test whether loan loss provisions in Islamic banks is procyclical by explicitly examining the link between non-discretionary provisions and loan growth. In the next stage, this paper tests whether the link between non-discretionary provisions and loan growth is conditional on bank capitalization and lending. This is to identify whether bank-specific factors affect the procyclicality of non-discretionary provisions and whether such procyclicality can be explained by income smoothing in banks with different capitalization and loan profiles.

This study is conducted in four stages. The first stage identifies the determinants of loan loss provisions. The second stage investigates whether income smoothing is affected by capitalization and lending activities. In the third stage, the link between non-discretionary provisions and loan growth is examined. In the fourth stage, this paper tests whether the link between non-discretionary provisions and loan growth is affected by bank capitalization and lending. A two-way panel-fixed effect model is used.

Non-discretionary provisions are procyclical, particularly for banks with lower capitalization and lending activities, because such banks do not conduct income smoothing. Specifically, banks with lower capitalization experience a decline in loan growth when non-discretionary provisions to cover credit risk increase.

The dataset used in this study follows Soedarmono et al. (2017) and does not enable to differentiate types of financing products in Islamic banks that may exacerbate or mitigate the procyclicality of non-discretionary provisions.

This paper extends prior literature on the procyclicality of loan loss provisions by specifically investigating the influence of non-discretionary provisions on loan growth in Islamic banks and whether such relationship depends on the role of income smoothing undertaken by banks with different levels of capitalization and lending. This paper builds on the work of Soedarmono et al. (2017) in which they do not explicitly examine the relationship between loan loss provisions and loan growth.

This paper aims to investigate whether the cyclicality of local real estate prices affects the systematic risk of local firms using a geography-based measure of land availability as a quasi-exogenous proxy for real estate price cyclicality.

This paper uses the geography-based land availability measure as a proxy for the procyclicality of real estate prices and the location of a firm’s headquarters as a proxy for the location of its real estate assets. Four-factor asset pricing model (market, size, value and momentum factors) is used to examine whether firms headquartered in more land-constrained metropolitan statistical areas have higher systematic risks.

The results show that real estate prices are more procyclical in areas with lower land availability and firms headquartered in these areas have higher systematic risk. This effect is more pronounced for firms with higher real estate holdings as a ratio of their tangible assets. Moreover, there are no abnormal returns to trading strategies based on land availability, consistent with stock market betas reflecting this local real estate factor.

This paper contributes to the literature on local asset pricing factors, the collateral role of firms’ real estate holdings and the co-movement of security prices of geographically close firms.

This paper has important managerial implications by showing that, when firms decide on the location of their buildings (e.g. headquarters building, manufacturing plant and retail outlet), the location’s influence on systematic risk should be part of the decision-making process.

This paper is among the first to use a geography-based measure of land availability to study whether the procyclicality of local real estate prices influences firm risk independent of the procyclicality of the local economy. Thus, both the portfolio formed and firm-level analyses provide a more direct evidence of the positive relation between the procyclicality of local real estate prices and firm risk.

The financial crisis 2007‐2009 calls for a regulatory response. A crucial element of this task is the treatment of systemic risk. Basel III gains centre stage in this process. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate Basel III, examining its ability to reduce systemic risk.

The paper highlights the importance of reducing systemic risk to achieve the goal of overall financial stability. By first focusing on the theoretical foundations of systemic risk, this paper explores and analyzes the crucial aspects of this almost impalpable risk type. It further investigates the current regulation of systemic risk, clearly showing Basel II's inability to reduce it. Then, it evaluates the Basel Committee's efforts to address these weaknesses through Basel III by investigating its incentives and its ability to reduce obvious drawbacks of Basel II as well as systemic risk factors.

The findings show that there are still adjustments necessary. Although the development of Basel III is well advanced, providing some stabilizing incentives, there are still issues calling for closer consideration to counter all Basel II drawbacks and systemic risk factors adequately. These include: a risk‐weighted leverage ratio; a more thorough treatment of procyclicality; adjustments for the NSFR (Net Stable Funding ratio); and most importantly, the mandatory issue to internalize negative externalities from financial institutions, that is, the call for pricing systemic risk.

The paper not only examines the new Basel III framework, as a response to the Financial Crisis 2007‐2009, but also draws attention to specific areas which the Basel Committee and regulators need to focus on more thoroughly.

Purpose – To discuss, from the perspective of developing countries, recent proposals for reforming international standards for bank capital requirements.

Methodology/approach – After evaluating, from the viewpoint of developing countries, the effectiveness of capital requirements reforms and progress in implementing existing regulatory accords, the chapter discusses the procyclical effects of Basel regimes, and suggests a reform proposal.

Findings – Minimum bank capital requirements proposals in developing countries should be complemented by the adoption of an incremental, size-based leverage ratio.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter contributes to enlarge the academic and policy debate related to bank capital regulation, with a particular focus on the situation of developing countries.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between commercial bank lending and business cycle in South Africa. This paper attempts to know whether commercial bank lending in South Africa is procyclical.

The model assumed that the lending behaviour is related to the business cycle. In this study, vector error correction model (VECM) is used to capture the relationship between bank lending and business cycle to accurately elicit the macroeconomic long-run relationship between business cycle and bank lending, as some banks might slow down bank lending due to some idiosyncratic factors that are not related to the downturn in the economy. This paper uses data from South African Reserve Bank for the period of 1990-2015 using VECM to understand the extent to which business cycle fluctuation can affect credit crunch in the financial system. The Johansen cointegration approach is used to ascertain whether there is indeed a long-run co-movement between credit growth and business cycle.

Results from the VECM show that there are significant linkages among the variables, especially between credit to gross domestic product (GDP) and business cycle. The influence of business cycle is seen vividly after a period of four to five years, where business cycle explains 20 per cent of the variation in the credit to GDP. South African banks tend to change their lending behaviour during upturns and downturns. This result further confirms the assertion in theory that credit follows business cycle and can amplify credit crunch. The result shows that in the long run, fluctuations in the business cycle can influence the credit growth in South Africa.

The impulse analysis result shows that the impact of business cycle shock is very persistent and lasting. This also demonstrates that the shocks to the business cycle result have a persistent and long-lasting impact on credit. This study finds that commercial bank lending in South Africa is procyclical. It is suggested that the South African economy needs forward-looking policies that will mitigate the flow of credit to the real sector and at the same time ensure financial stability.

Most research papers rarely distinguish between the demand side and supply side of credit procyclicality. This report is presented to develop an econometric model that will examine demand side procyclicality. This study adopts more realistic and novel methods that will help in explaining the relationship between bank lending and business cycle in South Africa, especially after the global financial crisis. This report is presented with a concise and detailed analysis and interpretation.