Using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, this study analyzes the risk and return results of Islamic banks versus their conventional counterparts in Malaysia in order to evaluate arguments that adherence to shariah based banking principles minimizes risk exposure. Using comparative data from eight Malaysian banks, our empirical investigation provides limited support to theoretical arguments that the Islamic banks minimize risk. Our results show that there is no statistically significant difference in returns and risk between Islamic and conventional banks. We interpret these results as providing support for theories of convergence between conventional finance and Islamic finance. Further, we argue that policy makers thus need to take into account conventional models of systemic and structural risk when regulating burgeoning Islamic financial markets.

Robert L. Williams and Helena A. Williams, Vintage Marketing Differentiation: The Origins of Marketing and Branding Strategies. New York, NY, Palgrave MacMillan, 2017, 256 pp, ISBN: 978-1-137-39431-6.Vintage Marketing Differentiation by Robert and Helena Williams is a historical analysis of the origins of the Marketing and Branding strategies used by organizations throughout the world. The book examines the origins of marketing and branding strategies that were used for over 100 years. Many of the Marketing and Branding strategies used today are actually variations of past strategies. The book examines and traces 16 Vintage Differentiation strategies back to their original business source. The purpose of the books is to show the cyclical nature of innovation grounded in evolutionary modeling in which managers become aware of changes in their environment and adapt accordingly.

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This paper investigates the impact of firm-level innovation on the skewness of stock returns. Using data on a broad sample of equities from the major US stock exchanges, we find that innovative companies exhibit strong positive skewness. Our results are robust to both input and output measures of innovation as we find that increases in both firm-level research and development expenditure (R&D), as well as the number of patents, are positively associated with future stock return skewness. Our results hold using both systematic and idiosyncratic measures of skewness while controlling for various stock characteristics, time, and industry-fixed effects.