Purpose Although most previous studies interested in Islamic banks have focused on quantitative aspects such as performance, risk and stability, this paper aims to deal with the institutional dimension and focus precisely on the link between board characteristics and bank performance. Design/methodology/approach Based on a data related to 13 banks in Bahrain observed over the period of 2005-2011, this study investigates the impact of board directors on the level of performance. To this end, the authors have used two empirical approaches. The first one is the panel data analysis with regard to random effect (RE) regression. The second one is the generalized method of moments (GMM) in system, which checked the soundness of the first result. Findings The result of RE regression indicates that the board duality is positively and significantly correlated with the bank performance for both ROA (return on assets) and ROE (return on equity). However, the board size exerts a positive and significant impact only when profitability is measured by ROE. The authors find that regression with GMM in system confirms the RE result exclusively for ROE. Findings also indicate that a financial crisis exerts a negative but not significant effect on bank performance. Practical implications These findings are relevant to both policymakers and regulators. Islamic banks in Bahrain should grant more importance to the structure and the quality of the board to improve their performance. Originality/value This study aims to extend the existing literature by focusing about the role of the Shariah board in bank performance.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of corruption on investment and growth in 15 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries during the period 1985-2013. The authors used the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) corruption index and conducted a panel cointegration analysis and Granger causality procedure to detect the dynamic relationships between the variables. Results indicate that corruption is a serious hurdle to economic growth in MENA countries since it affects investment activities and foreign direct investment inflows. In this case, policymakers have to implement effective anti-corruption strategies to avoid the epidemic of corruption. Design/methodology/approach -The authors used the ICRG corruption index and conducted a panel cointegration analysis and Granger causality procedure to detect the dynamic relationships between the variables. Findings -The main findings of this paper show that corruption is a serious hurdle to economic growth in MENA countries since it affects investment activities and foreign direct investment inflows. In this case, policymakers have to implement effective anti-corruption strategies to avoid the epidemic of corruption. Research limitations/implications -Unfortunately, in this study the authors did not use institutional variables to see their role and to judge whether governments should enhance the quality of institution and improve the corporate governance. This would be an opportunity to expand the sample and to conduct a new research in the near future to assess the real costs of corruption in the MENA region. Practical implications -Governments and policymakers need to apprehend and admit that corruption is an important issue that deters foreign direct investment and threats the economic development and growth. Corruption can also deteriorate the infrastructure and increase the cost of doing business for both government and private sector which in turn will lower the growth (Tanzi and Doovi, 1997). It is worth recalling that during the past five years, a large part of the MENA region has witnessed multiple social upheavals. Hence, corruption must be tackled effectively and coherently to avoid further social tensions. It is the proper time to take serious steps and strict policy actions within a zero-tolerance framework to fight corruption and its widespread. New rules, laws, and anti-corruption procedures are among the most important initiatives that governments should implement. The governments should also increase the public awareness of the multiple drawbacks of corruption by publishing official reports and data on the most corrupted sector in the country. In this case, media will have a key role to diffuse the necessary information. Originality/value -While most of the previous studies have employed GMM and OLS techniques, the authors opt a panel vector error correction model and cointegration technique to detect causality between the variables used in the model for the present study.

The aim of this research is to investigate the economic impacts of the trade liberalization on the environmental quality in Tunisia and Morocco. Specifically, the paper inspects whether liberalization of the trade sector has harmed the quality of the environment in both countries. To this end, we conduct various econometric models: a VECM and cointegration techniques for single country case study and a Panel VECM and Panel cointegration when using data of both country as a group. We also include a dummy variable in each model to see the real impact of trade liberalization for both countries. In the empirical section, we found bidirectional causality between FDI and CO2. This implies that the nature of FDI inflows to Morocco and Tunisia are not clean FDI. These results show that trade liberalization has a negative impact on environmental. The paper concludes that although trade liberalization boosted the economies of both countries by creating new employment opportunities, liberalization has harmed the environment.2

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between credit risk, liquidity risks and bank profitability within the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. We selected data related to a sample of conventional banks observed during the period 2004–2015 and we performed the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) method in the empirical section. The overall results suggest that profitability of MENA banks is negatively and significantly sensitive to an increase in credit and/or liquidity risks. This negative effect was confirmed for either the separate or the interaction effects of these two risks. Furthermore, the findings indicate that bank profitability decreases significantly the level of credit and liquidity risks. We also found that the law and order as institutional quality increases the profitability of MENA banks and decreases both credit and liquidity risks.