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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of industrial diversification on the profitability of contrarian and momentum strategies.

Using monthly returns, the weighted relative strength strategy (WRSS) is applied to 249 American listed stocks from January 1994 to April 2004. To study the impact of the 2000 crash on the results, the WRSS strategy during the 01/1994‐03/2000 and 04/2000‐04/2004 sub‐periods was implemented. Then, firms are classified, according to the intensity of their industrial diversification by Ward's method of hierarchical cluster analysis, into two sub‐samples: the diversified and non‐diversified samples. The WRSS strategy was re‐implemented on these sub‐samples. Finally, the Bootstrap without replacement is used to explore the risk‐based explanation of the trading strategies' profitability.

Results show that the momentum strategy seems to be no more profitable in the recent years. In fact, while momentum strategies earn large positive and significant returns before the 2000 crash, these returns are negative after the crash. Moreover, before the crash, the momentum effect was more pronounced for the non‐diversified sample. After the crash, a contrarian effect more important for this sample was identified. Finally, the Bootstrap without replacement results do not support the risk‐based explanation.

Future research may study the impact of diversification on investor psychology.

Diversified firms are efficiently valued. However, specialized firms are not correctly valued.

This is the first study that shows that contrarian or momentum portfolios formed by industrial diversification did not yield significant return.

The purpose of this study is to examine empirically the conditional correlation between the major US indices (S&P500 index and Dow Jones Industrial index) and three selected meat commodities as: Feeder Cattle, Leen Hogs and Live Cattle during the period from July 22, 2010 to June 30, 2017.

In this study, the authors use for the first time the GARCH-DECO (1,1) to examine empirically the conditional nexus between the major US indices (S&P500 index and Dow Jones Industrial index) and three selected meat commodities as; Feeder Cattle, Leen Hogs and Live Cattle during the period from July 22, 2010 to June 30, 2017.

From the empirical findings, the authors conclude the existence of a highly significance of conditional heteroscedasticity parameters can demonstrate us to distinguish the nature of the volatility dependency between S&P500 index and Dow Jones Industrial index and three selected meat commodities indices.

This can find clear the significance of relationship in the process of financialization of the major US index and meat commodities indices in the case of this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to examine financial integration across North American stock markets from January 1984 to December 2003.

The paper uses an arbitrage pricing theory framework. The risk factors considered are the three Fama and French factors augmented with momentum for both countries as well as their international counterparts. Both the domestic and international four factor models in cross section and test for partial, mild, and strong financial integration are estimated. The domestic and international model are estimated on domestic portfolios and on a subset of Canadian cross listings matched with American stocks.

Results can be summarized as follows: first, results show stronger evidence of mild rather than partial or strong integration in both domestic portfolios and interlisted stocks. Second, interlisted stocks appear at first glance to be more integrated than the domestic portfolios, but this result can be attributed to the poor explanatory power of the models applied to interlisted stocks. Once the authors rule out the case where the model does not generate statistically important risk premiums for both countries, the evidence of integration is similar in both domestic and interlisted stocks. Third, the domestic and international models have similar explanatory power, although the domestic model performs better with the Canadian interlisted stocks are found.

The results suggest that, in an international context, a portfolio manager is better off using the four factor model as a benchmark in cross sections rather than the single market. Furthermore, if the agency problem described in Karolyi is ignored, Canadian interlisted stocks and Canadian domestic portfolios have the same diversification potential.

This study aims to investigate whether social reputation via corporate social responsibility (CSR) awarding facilitates access to debt and decreases the cost of debt and whether governance mechanisms moderate this relationship.

The sample covers the period between 2002 and 2021, during which CSR award data were available in the Thomson Reuters Eikon/Refinitiv database. The empirical models are based on country, industry and year fixed-effects regression.

While the main findings produced an insignificant result for access to debt, they indicated strong evidence for the positive relationship between CSR awarding and the cost of debt. Moreover, the moderating effect highlights that while the sustainability committee helps CSR-awarded companies access debt more easily, independent directors help firms decrease the cost of debt via CSR awarding. Furthermore, the results differ between the US and the non-US samples, earlier and recent periods, high- and low-leverage firms and large and small firms.

For the first time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors assess whether social reputation via CSR awarding facilitates access to debt and decreases the cost of debt in an international and cross-industry sample. Little is known about the effect of social reputation on loan contracting, although social reputation conveys broader information that goes beyond the firm’s internal (performance) and external (reporting) CSR practices. The authors also draw attention to the differing roles of distinct governance mechanisms in leveraging social reputation for loan contracting.

The proverbial administrative complexity of Paris and its region, which also includes a metropolitan authority since 2016, has not prevented multiple and rapid changes to take place in the last decade. A national government decision has initiated the construction of a new regional metropolitan public transportation infrastructure that has leveraged more than €15 billions of green bonds. Mounting environmental challenges are triggering new societal priorities and legal changes, heightened by the COVID-19 crisis context. Since 2014, projects and plans led by local governments to value nature-based solutions (NBS) have met a rising interest from national and international investors and developers, in a context of multiple climate and biodiversity initiatives from the private sector and the civil society. However, assessing their long-term value remains a challenge for both governments and researchers while the calls for nature to remain a common good stir new forms of vigorous social engagement. The Paris case shows that the art of creating NBS that maximize biodiversity and support CO₂ reduction at large metropolitan scale depends on two priorities. The first is strengthening global commitments. The second is refocusing existing massive investments in grey infrastructure systems, so far major drivers of public investments, as infrastructure for distribution, unlocking local biodiversity valuation potential, and supporting social innovation.

This paper aims to propose a conceptual framework for the assessment of Islamic financial products’ development.

A coordinate grid with two perpendicular axes (profitability and compliance to Shari’ah) is developed and used to produce a nine-zone matrix. The research design is further developed by using a linear, composite index to assess product development feasibility and specifications. Subsequently, three strategic paths are identified: profitability-led strategic path, compliance-led strategic path and intermediate strategic path.

The findings indicate that the ideal strategic behavior the Islamic financial institutions have to borrow corresponds to the intermediate strategic path because it optimizes the trade-off between the two attributes under consideration. A proper development strategy of Islamic financial products should not ignore the compliance to the substance of Shari’ah and combine it simultaneously with profitability.

The paper’s originality consists in the identification of the portfolio of Islamic financial products’ strategic positioning in the nine-zone matrix and the determination of the most suitable product development strategy.

Islamic banking is an increasingly important factor in the UK financial environment. With Islamic banks entering the industry in significant numbers – and competing directly with the incumbent “conventional” ones – the question of selection criteria of the banks' customers is of obvious interest. The purpose of this paper is to study the decision‐making process of a sample of UK customers and the factors that may influence them.

The paper uses a sample of 156 UK questionnaire respondents, comprising Muslim and non‐Muslim bank customers alike. The methodological approach is partly borrowed from Masood et al. with the chosen questions aimed at finding out what drives the selection process of bank customers.

The paper's major findings show that, irrespective of the demographic features and the religion of the respondents, the criterion “low services charges” is the top customers' criteria. The Islamic nature of the bank is, however, placed second, pointing to the importance of religious orientation.

The major limitation of the paper relates to the size of the sample of respondents. The findings of the paper are likely to be of interest to UK banks determining how best to attract customers in the new era. Future research may usefully focus on an international comparison of bank selection criteria by employing an index of religiosity.

The paper is of particular value because it focuses on the choice of banking in the context of the recent significant growth in the Islamic banking industry in the UK.