The study investigates the effect of capital structure on the financial performance of the 17 nonfinancial companies listed in the Bahrain Bourse. The investigation was performed using 5 years data for the period from 2009 to 2013. The impact of some key macroeconomic variables (gross domestic product growth and inflation rate) on the performance of the firm was also considered in this study. Multiple regressions represented by ordinary least squares (OLS) were used to examine the effect of the independent variables (capital structure, inflation rate and GDP growth) on the financial performance measures used (ROA, ROE, EPS, and Dividend Yield)). Capital structure is encapsulated by total liabilities to total assets (TLTOTA) and total equity to total assets (EQTOTA). The results indicate that capital structure, represented by total liability to total assets, has a significantly positive impact on the performance of the firm represented by ROE, but not by ROA, EPS, and DIYILD. The results also indicate that lagged performance measures of ROA, ROE, EPS, and DYIELD have a significantly positive influence on the current year's performance measures of the firm. Moreover, the results indicate that lagged macroeconomic variables of inflation have a significantly negative relationship with certain performance measures (ROA, ROE, and EPS). Furthermore, the results indicate that gross domestic product growth (GDPG) has a significantly negative relationship with financial performance measured by EPS, but not those measured by ROA, ROE and DYIELD.

The main objective of this study is to empirically examine the impact of leverage and certain firm-characteristics that are believed to have significant effects on the decision to use debt and on the value of the firm. The sample is composed of 48 companies listed in the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) representing four different sectors. The study uses actual and historical panel data set obtained from the published annual reports of individual firms in addition to the publications of KSE. The study was accomplished using 8 years of data with a total of 239 observations representing the study period 2006-2013. The study uses descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple-regression analyses to examine the impact of explanatory variables on the value of the firm. The study findings lead to the conclusion that capital structure (leveraging) is the most influential factor on firm’s value. Business risk, previous year’s value (one-year lagged ROA), dividends payout ratio, size, growth opportunities and liquidity of the firm are found to have significant influence on the firm’s value in Model 1 (where ROA is used as a proxy for the value of the firm). In model 2 (i.e., where ROE is used as a proxy of the firm’s value), the findings reveal that capital structure (leveraging); firm’s size, growth opportunities and liquidity of the firm are significant influential of the firm’s value. The study is valuable to academicians, finance managers, policy makers and other stakeholders as it fills the gap of literature by providing up-to-date evidence of the impact of capital structure and other firm specific variables on the value of the firm in Kuwait.

This study examines the presence of the day-of-the-week effect anomaly in the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) using Ordinary Least Square Method (OLS). The day-of-the-week effect is a phenomenon that constitutes a form of anomaly of the efficient capital markets theory. According to this phenomenon, the average daily return of the market is not the same for trading days of the week, as we would expect on the basis of the efficient market theory. This study investigates day of the week effect on the available data of daily returns on the weighted index in the Kuwait Stock Exchange with the period from January 2002 to September 2011. The findings show that KSE exhibits positive returns on the first and the last day of the week with significant negative returns on the Second day of the Trading week.

The current study aims to examine the determinants of the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) in the context of Jordanian banks through a literature review and analysis of empirical evidence. The aggregate data were obtained from Globaleconomy.com, the Financial Soundness Indicators, the Central Bank of Jordan, and World Bank Data covering the period from 2003 to 2021. The aggregate data were analyzed using autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), utilizing Econometric Views (EViews) software. The empirical results suggest a short-run causality relationship running from banks’ credit-to-deposits ratio, banks’ leverage ratio, banks’ liquidity ratio, and one-year-lagged ROE to the CAR. The results also suggest the existence of short-run causality running from the capital-to-assets ratio, one-year-lagged capital-to-asset ratio, liquid-assets-to-deposits ratio, and coverage ratio to CAR. In addition, the results show the leverage ratio and liquidity ratio as having positive long-run associations with CAR. A positive and significant long-run association was also found between CAR, on the one hand, and the capital-to-assets ratio and the liquid assets to deposits ratio; the coverage ratio, on the other hand, showed a negative and statistically significant long-run association with CAR. The pairwise Granger causality test results reveal that liquid asset to deposits, money supply, profitability, and the capital-to-assets ratio Granger cause CAR. The study findings emphasize the importance of understanding the factors impacting CAR, the direction of the influence, the magnitude of the influence of the determinants of CAR in emerging economies such as Jordan and taking appropriate measures to safeguard the stability and resilience of the banking industry.

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