All economic sectors and individuals in Jordan rely mainly on banks to cover their shortage in money, thus banking sector plays a vital role in enhancing investments and economic development by standing in the middle between deficit units and surplus units. The major goal of this study is to identify what are the main drivers that impact lending behavior in Jordan. Using panel data and applying multi regression analysis on (13) Jordanian Conventional banks and two Islamic banks for the period (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013) that are covered in this research, we found that lending behavior is statistically significantly affected by internal factors (DV, IR and net profit after tax) and it is also affected significantly by external factor (RR, GDP, IFR, OWDR and Red. R). Also the analysis indicated that OWDR and Red. R as a proxy for monetary policy did have a negative impact on lending behavior but not significantly proven. The study also reached to a conclusion that the amount of loans and advances extended by Jordanian banks is not affected by rate of interest. We recommend that Jordanian banks' management should take into consideration internal specific factors as well as external specific factor with more care while formulating their lending policy, moreover central bank in cooperation with the Jordanian banking sector should work in more productive relationship in order to enhance more the economic growth.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between financial stability and banking soundness in Jordan. For this purpose, the study mainly uses the FMOLS approach in addition to other analysis techniques and tools. The outcomes of the descriptive analysis show that the Jordanian financial system seems stable, and the indicators of banking soundness signal a steady and solid banking sector. The cointegration tests indicate that the considered variables have a long-term equilibrium relationship; the variables move together in the long term. The empirical results reveal that the majority of the banking soundness indicators have a positive impact on financial stability. This asserts that a sound banking sector plays a vital role in maintaining a stable financial system. However, the findings also indicate that a steady interest rate policy is one of the significant requirements for sustaining the stability of financial systems. Moreover, the response of financial stability with respect to economic growth changes is found to be positive and relatively high. On the fact of the importance of the topic under study, since financial stability is one of the major concerns of the authority bodies, the empirical findings can have very important policy implications for decision-makers.

This paper provides evidence that institutional investors show preferences for large capitalization stocks, with good financial performance, high degree of leverage, low trade frequency, low annual return, and low price to book value ratio. Dividend Yield and stock volatility as measured by the standard deviations of daily prices do not seem to play an important role in institutional choice. The prudent man rule and fiduciary responsibilities of institutional managers might be good reasons to explain our findings. Keywords: Jordanian Stock Market, Institutional ownership and preferences IntroductionInstitutional investors, as generally defined, are large investors who exercise discretion over the investments of others (Note 1). Recently, institutions account for over 43.4 percent of trading in the Jordanian stock market. Stock exchanges may be interested in institutional preference for the purpose of attracting institutional order flow, without discrimination on the type of institutions.Part of the recent Finance literature analyzes the determinants of shareholdings by institutional stockholders. For example, Grinstein and Michaely (2005) present evidence suggesting that institutions tend to avoid stocks that do not pay dividends. Among stocks that pay dividends, institutions tend to hold more of those that pay lower dividends. Institutions also prefer firms that repurchase more stock.The literature on institutional preferences has used price per share, share turnover, and firm size as proxies for liquidity (see, for example, Bennett et al. (2003), Gompers and Metrick (2001), Del Guercio (1996), and Falkenstein (1996) and found that they affect institutional holdings. This paper investigated empirically the firm specific variables, which influence the investment decision of institutional investors. The share holding of the institutions is taken in percentage form to control the firm size. The relationship is observed through the correlation and regression coefficients.The rest of the paper proceeds as follows: section 2 presents literature review, section 3 contains a discussion of the hypotheses, section 4 discusses the methodology and variables, section 5 reviews results, section 6 concludes the paper. Literature ReviewAs the Jordanian equity market is growing, the trend and future prospects in domestic and foreign institutional investments has become a topic of great concern. The combination of institutions' better monitoring and information gathering abilities and the advantages some forms of payouts offer institutions (taxes, prudent man rule (Note 2)) have led some researchers to investigate the preferences of institutions when making investment decisions. Elyas et al, (2010) investigate the association between corporate firm performance and the level and stability of www.ccsenet.org/ijef

Investor's psychological behavior normally seek to invest in companies that are characterized by stable and positive dividend stream. Dividend policy is related to the decision of whether to distribute or not to distribute cash to shareholder. This type of decision is not taken in isolation from other related financial factors, as such decision is considered an integrated part of the company's overall financial decisions. This study aims at investigating the apropos of accounting information indicators (financial indicators) and their role in determining cash dividend policy adopted by companies listed within the major sectors of Amman Stock exchange. Extracting the accounting information indicators pertaining to the three main sectors (Banking, Industrial and Services) of ASE, and by applying the simple linear regression statistical approach, the results indicated that the dividend policy adopted by the three sectors were mainly determined by accounting information indicators and that the impact of these indicators on cash dividend policy vary due to dissimilarity of the sectors' nature, whereas the results pointed out that different indicator affect different sector, which means that the impact of the accounting information is not identical on cash dividend policy decision.