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This paper aims to examine the impact of information and telecommunication technologies (ICT-proxied by mobile phone subscription and Internet usage) on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries from 1990 to 2018.

The Cross-section Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL) model is employed to address the potential cross-section dependence problem. Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) and Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimators are used to test for robustness of results.

Results reveal contrasting effects of mobile phone subscription and Internet usage on CO2 emissions. While mobile phone penetration helps mitigate CO2 emissions, Internet usage tends to increase the emissions. Findings show that renewable energy is beneficial to the environment while economic growth is harmful to the environment. The effects of financial development and trade openness seem negligible.

This study offers practical implications for policymakers. As different proxies of ICT could have contradictory impact on CO2, governments should be cautious against utilizing ICT to mitigate CO2. Findings point to the benefits of renewable energy in alleviating CO2 emissions. Therefore, governments are strongly advised to implement policies facilitating renewable energy consumption.

Previous studies ignored the problem of cross-section dependence which could lead to biased results and cause misleading inferences. This study aims to fill this void in the literature.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the difference between the determinants of cash holdings of Shariah-compliant and non-Shariah-compliant firms, for non-financial corporations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The data include all non-financial firms listed in six GCC markets over a period 2005–2019. The IdealRatings database is used to identify Shariah-compliant firms in the GCC. To examine the determinants of cash holdings, a static model is used. To confirm the applicability of the method applied, the Breusch–Pagan Lagrange Multiplier (LM) and Hausman (1978) are used to choose the most efficient and consistent static panel regression.

The results show that, for Shariah-compliant firms, the relevant determinants of cash holdings are leverage, profitability, capital expenditure, net working capital and operating cash flow. For non-Shariah-compliant firms, the only relevant determinants of cash holdings are leverage, net working capital and operating cash flow. The findings suggest that the cash holding decisions of Shariah-compliant firms can be best explained using the pecking order theory. This reveals that Shariah-compliant firms use liquid assets as their first financing option, due to the Shariah regulations.

Future studies may investigate the optimal levels of cash holdings and compare the adjustment speeds toward target cash holdings of both the Shariah-compliant firms and their conventional counterparts.

This study is the first to investigate the difference between the determinants of cash holdings of Shariah-compliant and non-Shariah-compliant firms.

This study examines the impact of oil price volatility on firm profitability. As Shariah-compliant firms operate under restrictions, the study also explores whether oil price volatility affects Shariah-compliant firms differently from their non-Shariah-compliant counterparts.

The study sample includes all non-financial firms listed on Gulf Cooperation Council stock exchanges from 2005 to 2019. In evaluating the oil price volatility–profitability relationship, static (panel fixed effects) and dynamic (system generalised method of moments) models were used.

Oil price volatility significantly depresses firm profitability. In addition, Shariah-compliant firms are more significantly affected by oil price volatility than their non-Shariah-compliant peers. The results suggest that high oil price volatility exposes Shariah-compliant firms to higher bankruptcy risk than non-Shariah-compliant firms and that positive and negative oil price shocks have asymmetric effects on firm performance.

The findings of the paper call for more economic diversification by supporting non-oil sectors in the region and raise the need for more development of Islam-compliant products that compete with traditional instruments to help Shariah-compliant firms cope with uncertainty. Moreover, managers need to prepare quick alert and response procedures to reduce the negative impacts of oil price volatility on profitability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the relationship between oil price volatility and profitability of non-financial firms. Further, the study extends prior Islamic corporate finance literature by enhancing the understanding of how Islamic corporate decisions affect firm performance during instability.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between Shariah compliance and corporate capital structure decisions. This study explores the variation of capital structure speed of adjustment.

The authors’ sample includes a sample of the largest 200 nonfinancial firms trading in the Malaysian and Pakistan stock markets. This study uses ordinary least squares and dynamic two-step system generalized method of moments to test the hypotheses of the study.

The results show that Shariah-compliant firms use a lower level of leverage than the noncomplaint firms. Moreover, while both types of firms have optimal capital structures, the speed of adjustment toward the targets is slower for Shariah-complaint firms than non-Shariah-compliant firms. This variation can be seen through the different levels of market imperfection experienced by the two types of firms. Shariah-compliant firms follow Islamic rules that restrict the type and degree of leverage, thus affecting the availability of external funding to Shariah-compliant firms.

The findings call for more development and innovation of financing instruments that comply with Shariah rules that will increase of supply of external funds for Shariah-compliant firms and, thus, reduce market imperfections that are faced by Shariah-compliant firms.

The study contributes to the limited number of studies that examine the nexus between conventional corporate theories and Islamic corporate finance.

Public employment in India is often viewed as a source of job security. Hence, public employment seems to propel human security in India away from poverty and social exclusion. In the recent work, a significant attention has been accorded to understand how globalisation has impacted on job security and thereby human security in many developing countries. The literature revolves around two opposing effects of globalisation on the human security in a country: firstly, the efficiency hypothesis posits that globalisation tends to reduce the size of the government of a country to enable the country to attain comparative advantage for gainfully trading in the global economy. A reduction in the capacity of the government is argued to lead to a decline in public employment and, hence, a decline in human security with rising globalisation. Secondly, the compensation hypothesis argues that the size of government, and hence public employment, will increase with globalisation mainly to suitably manage a domestic economy in a complex global setting with an increased role of government for creating social stability and social security. Depending on the relative strengths of the mutually opposing forces of globalisation on public employment, the impact of globalisation on the human security of a country is ambiguous. A gap in the existing literature is a lack of documentation of the Indian experience. In this work, the authors seek to empirically test if globalisation has increased, or decreased, job security in India.

This paper aims to find out the similarities and differences in meaning between the word “al amanah” and trust.

As a qualitative research, a content analysis is used in three stages. First, to elaborate the exegesis of the related Qur’anic verses together with the background narration or asbab un-nuzul if any and the Prophetic hadith where the word amanah is and to analyse and conclude its meanings. Second, the word “trust” is analysed based on the discussions in the literature which will lead to its specific meanings. Third, the concluded meanings of amanah and trust are to be compared to find out their similarities and differences.

Amanah and trust have the similar meanings: safe, confident, ability to fulfil the expectation of the person who trust, having competence or expertise to perform duty, deliver commitments, keep promises, work with a full of responsibility, integrity or obedient to moral principles. Differences: Amanah is not only oriented to humanity and responsibility in human’s relations but also, more importantly, to God Allah the Almighty, obeying His commands to make it as ibadah or acts of worshipping Allah the Almighty for maslahah or welfare for society.

The findings are considered important for companies or organisations. Before doing a commercial transaction or entering a contract or hiring an employee, they must study the quality of the counterparty whether they are capable to do the job as expected or not. In addition, the findings indicate that Islamic teachings concerning muamalat or Islamic rules for social dealings is universal in nature.

Being the first time to compare the word al amanah to trust, the findings point out the important elements to be evaluated when assigning a certain duty to an agent.

The face value of nonowner-occupied real estate and business fixed assets is excluded from Zakah, according to most Fiqh scholars who argue that it has not been explicitly ordered during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (sas). This study aims to test the hypothesis that the role of these properties in the early Islamic economy was insignificant and, therefore, differed from today.

A qualitative historical analysis of primary Islamic sources and narrations from early Muslim historiography has been conducted to understand real estate sales and rent, construction costs and the number and size of houses owned by the Sahabah. In addition, inheritance reports and land gift records have been examined to obtain relevant information about the value of real estate. As for business fixed assets, the type, number and wealth of craftspeople as well as their tools have been analyzed to reveal their significance in comparison with today.

The findings of this study confirm the hypothesis that real estate for investment purposes and business fixed assets were quasi-non-existent during the lifetime of the Prophet (sas) and, therefore, irrelevant from a Zakah perspective.

This study intends to be a catalyst for the reconsideration of Zakah on these items of wealth and contributes to the Fiqhi discourse.