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There are a number of differences in the current Sharīʿah screening guidelines formulated by Sharīʿah scholars associated with world-renowned index providers and financial institutions. The purpose of this study is to highlight the consequences of such differences on the portfolio level outcomes for Sharīʿah-compliant investors. This study also investigates the cost of adopting an alternative stock selection methodology.

Seven Sharīʿah-compliant equity portfolios (SCEPs) are created from the active constituents of the S&P 500. Size, sector allocation and financial performance of the resulting seven portfolios are evaluated for the period 1984–2019. Style analysis is performed to attribute the difference in financial performance caused by the choice of selection criteria to different risk factors. The cost of switching the selection criteria is evaluated with turnover analysis and break-even transaction cost.

The choice of stock selection criteria has a significant effect on the size, sector bets and financial performance of the portfolios. Those portfolios which are constructed with market capitalization-based screens outperform portfolios constructed with total assets-based screens. The turnover analysis revealed that SCEPs are relatively costly in practice.

This study investigates the performance of Sharīʿah-compliant portfolios in the context of seven different screening guidelines. The effects of transaction cost and performance attribution to different risk factors represent the key contributions of this study.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic content review and bibliometric analysis of the current research trends, core concepts and knowledge mapping on the topic Islamic Banking and Finance (IBF) during Covid-19. Apart from highlighting the contributions of prolific authors, prominent institutions and countries, a comprehensive review of a significant number of documents using co-citation and co-word analysis is carried out for the science mapping.

A data set of 125 papers was collected published in Scopus database during the period December, 2019 and January 5th, 2023. Yearly publications, most-cited papers and authors, active sources, affiliations and countries are highlighted with descriptive analysis. Knowledge structure of the topic was mapped with investigating the social, intellectual and conceptual structures of IBF research. Content analysis is carried out to uncover the underlying research clusters that shape the scientific knowledge structure of studies.

A diverse group of authors and institutions contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the topic. IBF is adopting new paradigms and frameworks to integrate FinTech, crowd funding and Islamic social finance to provide sustainable solutions in both crisis and normal periods. The research on IBF is classified in to three themes: “financial markets in Covid-19,” “modeling risk and market regimes” and “FinTech and Islamic social finance.”

This study collects data only from Scopus database. Future studies must include research articles from other databases such as, Web of Sciences.

This study highlights research gaps in the existing literature and provides directions for future research.

Political risk is an important determinant of portfolio returns. The basic purpose of this study is to revisit the importance of political risk in a constrained portfolio, namely, a Shariah-compliant equity portfolio (SCEP). Furthermore, the performance of such a constrained portfolio is also compared with a conventional portfolio that invests in all stocks.

The portfolios are constructed from stock-level data and invested in 61 international markets. The set of Shariah-compliant stocks is obtained with screening guidelines of Dow Jones Islamic Market indices. The weights of each constituent in both Shariah-compliant and conventional portfolios are driven by its relative exposure to political risk for the period 1996–2018.

Results show that, compared to conventional investors, Shariah-compliant investors gain substantial benefits when the allocation decision is based on political risk. A Shariah-compliant portfolio outperforms its conventional counterpart by 7.98% annually when tilted toward politically stable countries. The economic benefits further increase to 804 basis points when the portfolio allocates more funds to politically unstable countries. The tilted SCEP successfully reduces the downside risk, resulting in improved financial performance stability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first effort of its nature to highlight the importance of political risk in the context of SCEPs.

This study aims to provide a comparative insight into the level of informational efficiency and irregularities of Shariah-compliant stocks and conventional stocks in three emerging markets, namely, China, Malaysia and Pakistan. The empirical evidence is provided for pre-crisis and crisis periods caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Informational efficiency is measured using the variance ratio (VR) Test developed by Kim (2006). The Approximate Entropy (ApEn) Metrics is used to investigate the level of irregularities in stock prices caused by the pandemic.

All the three emerging markets in the sample are not immune to the crisis caused by Covid-19 pandemic. The level of informational efficiency of both the Shariah-compliant and conventional stock is affected by the crisis. However, the former exhibits relatively high level of informational efficiency and stability in returns as compared to more volatility of conventional stocks.

This study provides market agents and policy makers with a robust assessment of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on informational efficiency of Shariah-compliant and conventional stocks. Relatively high informational efficiency of Shariah-compliant stocks indicates that they are more transparent and that investors can trust the Shariah-compliant stocks more. This higher level of transparency and trust leads to more steady returns and lower levels of risk even during turbulent time like Covid-19. Investors can gain superior returns by conducting fundamental analysis and investing in index funds.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that highlights the difference in informational efficiency of conventional stocks and Shariah-compliant stocks in the crisis period caused by Covid-19. Unlike previous studies, this study uses firm level data which enables firm-wise assessment of informational efficiency.

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on investors' sentiments, behavioral biases and investment decisions in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).

The authors have assessed investors' behaviors and sentiments and the stock market overreaction during COVID-19 using a questionnaire and collected data from 401 investors trading in the PSX.

Results of structural equation modeling revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic affected investors' behaviors, investment decisions and trade volume. It created feelings of fear and uncertainty among market participants. Evidence suggests that behavioral heuristics and biases, including representative heuristic, anchoring heuristic, overconfidence bias and disposition effect, negatively influenced investors' decisions at the PSX.

This study will contribute to behavioral finance literature in the context of developing countries as it has revealed the impact of COVID-19 on the emerging stock market, and its results are generalizable to other emerging stock markets.

The findings of this study will help academicians, researchers and policymakers of developing countries. Academicians can formulate new behavioral models that can depict the solutions of dealing with an uncertain situation like COVID-19. Policymakers like the Securities Exchange Commission and the PSX can formulate crisis management strategies based on behavioral finance concepts to cope with situations like COVID-19 in the future and help lessen investors' losses in the stock markets. The role of the Securities Exchange Commission is crucial as it regulates the financial markets. It can arrange workshops to educate investors to manage their decisions during crisis time and focus on the best use of irrational and rational decision-making at the same time using Lo (2004) adaptive market hypothesis.

The novelty of the paper is that the authors have introduced overconfidence and disposition effect as mediators that create a connection between representative and anchoring heuristics and investment decisions using primary data collected from investors (institutional and retail) to demonstrate the presence of psychological biases during COVID-19, and it has been done for the first time according to authors' knowledge. It is a contribution and addition to the behavioral finance literature in the context of developing countries' stock markets and their efficiency.

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of two types of social media videos used for destination image development: induced/commercial-oriented content and organic content (where content is made without commercial interest, such as vlogs classified as user-generated content).

Experimental research using “Emotive EEG” (electroencephalogram) in a controlled environment was conducted with 30 participants (20 males, 10 females), age range 18 to 26. Emotive EEG recording was performed while the participants watched both types of video clips. Test results for both groups indicate that induced content is preferred over organic content.

This study opens up future research avenues where neuromarketing’s “Marketer Friendly” EEG equipment can be applied to the customer selection process.

Marketing analysts can gauge the interest and response of customers on different types of social media video content for destination marketing based on the findings of this study.