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This study aims to identify and compare the measurement models of earnings management (EM) appropriate to the Iranian Islamic banking system. The importance of reported profit figures has motivated business executives, who also perform financial reporting, to manipulate these figures. These measures are referred to as “earnings management,” which negatively influence the quality of reported earnings and financial statements' reliability.

In this study, four methods, namely, Jones (1991), modified Jones (Dechow et al., 1995), Kasznik (1999) and Kothari et al. (2005), were used to measure the EM index in 25 Iranian Islamic banks (IBs) registered with the Tehran Stock Exchange and/or the Central Bank of Iran. The study covered the period 2005–2020. Following the aforementioned methods, this research implemented templates that were repeatedly tested in subsequent studies using accruals to discover EM.

The results show that the Kasznik (1999) model is the preferred and compatible model with the Iranian Islamic banking system's accrual behaviour due to the consistency of the measurement coefficients with theoretical and previous research findings. Therefore, total accruals, including discretionary accruals and non-discretionary accruals, have the most correspondence with (1) property, machinery and equipment; (2) the change in cash flow from operating activities; and (3) the difference of change in revenue (ΔREV) and change in net receivable accounts (ΔREC).

This is the first investigation in the Iranian Islamic banking system. The research contributes to the Iranian Islamic banking system literature on the implements of EM, which could be appealed to in the context of developing countries like Iran. Finally, this study highlights the different EM capabilities in Islamic banking systems similar to the Iranian banking arrangement.

This study aims to investigate the spillover between the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) stock index and several security indices, including Sukuk and conventional bond, and ultimately compare the hedge effectiveness of Sukuk and conventional bond.

The study uses VAR (1)-asymmetric Baba, Engle, Kraft and Kroner-multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (1,1) model to analyze the volatility and shock and asymmetric shock spillover between Sukuk index and several bond indices in the MENA region including, Bond, All Bond, High Yield Bond and Bond and Sukuk and MENA stock market index and ultimately compare the hedging capabilities of Sukuk and conventional bonds by calculating the optimal portfolio weights for securities indices and stock portfolios and hedge effectiveness of security indices.

Results indicate that there is no shock, volatility and asymmetric shock spillover between the Sukuk index and MENA stock index, implying that Sukuk indices behave independently from MENA stock indices; however, there is shock and asymmetric shock spillover between MENA stock indices and security indices that include conventional bonds. The result of optimal portfolio weights and corresponding hedge effectiveness indicate that Sukuk is the most significant asset among other security indices in diversifying and hedging stock MENA portfolios. Moreover, the hedge effectiveness of Sukuk shows persistent trends during both the normal and crisis periods.

The study suggests that MENA stock market investors and investment managers should add Sukuk instead of the conventional bond to their portfolio to hedge their portfolio against investment risks during both normal and crisis periods.

Although many studies compare many aspects of Sukuk and conventional bonds, this is the first study that compares the hedge effectiveness of Sukuk and conventional bond based on the time-varying optimal portfolio weights strategy.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the correlation between the price return of leading cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Monero, Stellar, Peercoin and Dash, and stock return of technology companies' indices that mainly operate on the blockchain platform and provide financial services, including alternative finance, democratized banking, future payments and digital communities.

This study employs a Bayesian asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) (BADCC-MGARCH) model with skewness and heavy tails on daily sample ranging from August 11, 2015, to February 10, 2020, to investigate the dynamic correlation between price return of several cryptocurrencies and stock return of the technology companies' indices that mainly operate on the blockchain platform. Data are collected from multiple sources. For parameter estimation and model comparison, the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm is employed. Besides, based on the expected Akaike information criterion (EAIC), Bayesian information criterion (BIC), deviance information criterion (DIC) and weighted Deviance Information Criterion (wDIC), the skewed-multivariate Generalized Error Distribution (mvGED) is selected as an optimal distribution for errors. Finally, some other tests are carried out to check the robustness of the results.

The study results indicate that blockchain-based technology companies' indices' return and price return of cryptocurrencies are positively correlated for most of the sampling period. Besides, the return price of newly invented and more advanced cryptocurrencies with unique characteristics, including Monero, Ripple, Dash, Stellar and Peercoin, positively correlates with the return of stock indices of blockchain-based technology companies for more than 93% of sampling days. The results are also robust to various sensitivity analyses.

The positive correlation between the price return of cryptocurrencies and the return of stock indices of blockchain-based technology companies can be due to the investors' sentiments toward blockchain technology as both cryptocurrencies and these companies are based on blockchain technology. It could also be due to the applicability of cryptocurrencies for these companies, as the price return of more advanced and capable cryptocurrencies with unique features has a positive correlation with the return of stock indices of blockchain-based technology companies for more days compared to the other cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum, that may be regarded more as speculative assets.

The study results may show the positive role of cryptocurrencies in improving and developing technology companies that mainly operate on the blockchain platform and provide financial services and vice versa, suggesting that managers and regulators should pay more attention to the usefulness of cryptocurrencies and blockchains. This study also has important risk management and diversification implications for investors and companies investing in cryptocurrencies and these companies' stock. Besides, blockchain-based technology companies can add cryptocurrencies to their portfolio as hedgers or diversifiers based on their strategy.

This is the first study analyzing the connection between leading cryptocurrencies and technology companies that mainly operate on the blockchain platform and provide financial services by employing the Bayesian ssymmetric DCC-MGARCH model. The results also have important implications for investors, companies, regulators and researchers for future studies.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of market structure and market share on the performance of the Islamic banks operating in the Iranian banking system based on the structure-conduct-performance (SCP) paradigm.

The Iranian Islamic banking system’s market structure is evaluated by using the econometrics method to test the validity of the traditional SCP paradigm. For this purpose, the authors estimate a simple regression model that is consisted of several independent variables, such as the market share, bank size, real gross domestic product, liquidity and Herfindahl-Hirschman index as a proxy variable for concentration and one dependent variable, namely, the profit as a proxy for performance. The panel data includes a data sample of 22 Islamic banks operating from 2006 to 2019. Data are extracted from the balance sheet of Islamic banks and the time-series database of the Central Bank of Iran and World Bank.

The study’s findings indicate that both concentration and market share have a positive impact on the performance of banks in the Iranian Islamic banking system. This result is contradicted with both traditional SCP and efficient structure hypotheses; however, it confirms the existence of oligopoly or cartel in the Iranian Islamic banking system that few banks try to gain the highest share of profit and maintain their market share by colluding with each other. This result is in contradiction with other research studies about the market structure in the Iranian banking system that claimed that banks in Iran operate under monopolistic competition. In addition, it shows that the privatization of some banks in Iran does not improve and help competition in the Iranian banking system.

This paper is a pioneer empirical study analyzing the market structure, concentration and collusion based on the SCP paradigm in Iranian Islamic banking. The results of the study support the existence of collusive behavior among the Islamic bank in Iran that is not aligned with Sharia. This study clearly shows the difference between ideal Islamic banking and Islamic banking in practice in Islamic countries. This clearly indicates that only prohibiting some operations like receiving interest, gambling and bearing excessive risk is not enough. In fact, the Islamic banking system should be based on the Sharia rule in all aspects and much more modification and study have to be done to achieve an appropriate Islamic banking system. These possible modifications to overcome the issues of cartel-like market structure and collusive behavior in the Iranian Islamic banking system include making the Iranian banking system more transparent, letting foreign banks enter the Iranian banking system and minimizing the government intervention in the Iranian banking system.

A hypothesis developed in this paper models the relationship between the borrower and the bank as a dynamic game based on incomplete information (business game) and seeks an equilibrium point at which the facilitated applicant can act according to the terms of the loan agreement once the contract is signed and meet the requirements of the contract.

The primary assumption in the formation of the Islamic bank in Islamic society is that the members of the society are Muslims and act according to religious orders. However, the non-fulfillment of divine principles and orders is always possible. In partnership agreements, the risk of infringement is reduced and corrupt contracts are prevented in some circumstances. Our basic model was constructed using the Beer-Quiche classic game, which has been modified dynamically along with a generalization of complexity terms. The information asymmetry led us to use a heterogeneous belief system to evaluate the probability of the customer transmitting a low credit risk signal to the bank and the probability of the customer transmitting a high credit risk signal to the bank. There are several assumptions of the basic model that are released in the extended model by the presence of a social inspector, by exploring credit risk signals in the generalized model and by considering various commitment levels in the comprehensive model.

As a result, it is observed that there is no Nash equilibrium in cases where the customer applies separation strategies. But if the pulling strategies are applied, the Nash equilibrium can be achieved under certain conditions, including inspection bodies in the banking system, the creation of necessary transparency and the proper treatment of criminals by government and regulatory bodies. So, by using alternative belief systems, applying different filters and paying attention to all sectors of the economy, new Nash equilibrium points can be achieved. Moreover, multi-stage facilities payment reduces the risk of corrupt contracts.

This paper sets out to analyze Nash Equilibrium and its possible encounter in Islamic Banking for the first time, utilizing a Bayesian Game-Theoretic framework. A major aspect of the research is the contribution to a better understanding of the role of transparency and government oversight in the implementation of Islamic banking regulatory standards.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between stock markets, environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and Shariah-compliant in an integrated framework.

The authors employ the multivariate factor stochastic volatility (mvFSV) framework to extract the volatility of the different sectoral indices. Based on this evidence, the authors employ the quantile vector autoregressive (QVAR) approach to examine the dynamic spillover connectedness among the aforementioned indices.

The study emphasizes the following major findings: (1) significant time-varying spillover connectedness across quantiles, (2) bidirectional and asymmetric spillover effect among the ESG index and the other sectoral indices, (3) the strength of spillover connectedness is time-varying across quantiles, (4) based on the perspective of portfolio optimization, ESG market is a significant strong forecasting contributor to conventional and Shariah-compliant markets, (5) overall, the findings point out serious quantile pass-through effect among ESG index and the other sectoral indices during the COVID-19 health crisis.

This study extends the previous literature in the following ways. First, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, none of the existing studies have investigated the relationship between stock markets, ESG factors and Shariah-compliant in an integrated framework. Second, this study extends the previous scholarships by applying the mvFSV. Third, the authors propose a new rolling version to estimate dynamic spillovers, namely the rolling-window quantile VAR method. This approach provides a great advantage in computing the dynamics of return and variance spillover between variables in terms not only of the overall factor but also of the net (pairwise) aspect.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between cash holdings, investment opportunities and financial constraint with audit fees in Iran.

In order to collect data, all manufacturing companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange are used to test the hypotheses during 2008–2015. Panel data and combined data regression model were used for data analysis. Tests were performed using R statistical software.

The results obtained from the statistical analysis of research hypotheses indicated that there is a significant relationship between cash holdings and audit fees. Furthermore, the relationship between cash holdings, financial constraints and audit fees was significant. In addition, there was no significant relationship between cash holdings, investment opportunities and audit fees.

The current study employed a unique topic in terms of a developing country, and the results may give strength to other developing nations.