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This paper re-examines the small firm premium in the UK from December 1987 to December 2004 using a new survivorship bias-free and look-ahead bias-free database of the UK market covering stocks officially listed in the UK during this period. Prior research (Dimson, E., and P.R. Marsh. 1987. The Hoare Govett smaller companies index for the UK. Hoare Govett Limited, January; Dimson, E., and P.R. Marsh. 1999. Murphy's law and market anomalies. Journal of Portfolio Management 25, no. 2: 53-69) documented an annual small-size premium in the UK market of around 6% during the period 1955-1986 and an annual small-size discount of 6% during the years 1989-1997. Our results show a continuation of the small firm premium in the UK during 1988-2004 in excess of 7% per year. We conclude that the reversal of the small firm premium documented by Dimson and Marsh (1999. Murphy's law and market anomalies. Journal of Portfolio Management 25, no. 2: 53-69) is dependent on the data sample and methodology used. The main contribution to the 7%+ geometric annual premium reported here comes mainly during the years 1993 and 1999. Furthermore, exploitation of the small firm premium depends on the strategy used and in particular on the length of the holding period before rolling over the strategy. Thus, while it can be argued that an economically significant small firm anomaly continues to exist, it appears to be sample-dependent, time-varying and unreliable, and difficult to exploit in practice.

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This paper contributes to the nascent literature on Takaful by investigating the solvency determinants for Takaful firms in both the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Malaysian economies. Our main objective is to develop a deeper understanding of the solvency determinants of these firms. Using hand-collected microdata for the period 2011 to 2016 for 52 Takaful firms, we document that firm size and wakalah fees significantly decrease solvency. From a regulatory point of view, this finding underscores that the percentage of wakalah fees should be closely monitored. Moreover, we find that other explanatory variables, including return on assets and the risk retention and investment income ratios, are not significantly associated with solvency. Overall, our results remain robust to many different model specifications. Further analysis indicates significant differences between the GCC and Malaysian Takaful firms. This may be explained by the different stages of financial development in the two markets.