nep-ara 2013-03-09 papers

on Arab World

Issue of 2013‒03‒09
two papers chosen by
Quentin Wodon
World Bank

Financial Stability of Islamic and Conventional Banks in Saudi Arabia: a Time Series Analysis By Hassan Ghassan; Stefano Fachin; Abdelkarim Guendouz
Urban Society of Amman - Report of the Amman Household Survey 2008 By Hiroshi Kato; Haruka Usuki; Erina Iwasaki

Financial Stability of Islamic and Conventional Banks in Saudi Arabia: a Time Series Analysis

By:	Hassan Ghassan (King Faisal University); Stefano Fachin (Universita' di Roma "La Sapienza"); Abdelkarim Guendouz (King Faisal University)
Abstract:	Islamic banks are characterised by the compliance to Islamic laws and practices, the main ones being the prohibition of interest and loans trading. Remarkably, during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, when a large number of conventional banks have announced bankruptcy, no single Islamic bank failure has been reported. However, there is no clear consensus in the literature on question of whether Islamic banks are more or less stable than conventional banks. We study a sample of Saudi banks over a period centred on the 2008 financial crisis. The main conclusions are: (i) the variables typically used in financial stability studies may be non-stationary, a feature ignored in the literature, and, (ii), individual heterogeneity may matter more than the conventional or islamic nature of the banks.
Keywords:	Islamic Banks, Financial Crisis, Financial Stability, Z-score Model, Saudi Arabia.
Date:	2013–01
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sas:wpaper:20131&r=ara

Urban Society of Amman - Report of the Amman Household Survey 2008

By:	Hiroshi Kato; Haruka Usuki; Erina Iwasaki
Abstract:	Arab world is essentially an urban society, whose typical examples are the primate capital cities in the Arab countries. In case of Amman, the capital of Jordan, it grew rapidly with the economic development in recent decades, and currently has 40% of national population. Its spatial expansion took place without urban planning, and is associated with many social and economic problems. However, the singularity of Amman is in its development in relation to migration. Since the independence of Jordan in 1946, Amman has accommodated the refugees and migrants that flowed into whenever wars and conflicts occurred in the Middle East. As such, Jordan is one of the most important buffer states in the Middle Eastern politics. There are few empirical studies based on statistical data on Amman urban society, and detailed studies that focus attentions on its spatial transformation are rare. Our paper aims at providing the basic information concerning the socioeconomic situations in Amman based on the data derived from the Amman Household Survey 2008, in view of the future research on the urban development of Amman. Originality of our paper lies in setting 'district' (liwa') as a base of analysis. By doing so, we categorize the 'districts' from socioeconomic point of view, and clarifies the socioeconomic characteristics of 'districts' which reflect the close relationship between social structuring and migration from inside and outside Jordan.
Date:	2013–01
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd12-272&r=ara

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