Explore the vast range of titles available.

Purpose The question of public debt management for both developed and developing economies has created an enormous amount of political as well as academic interest. The purpose of this paper is to examine how governance affects public debt accumulation in the Arabian Gulf countries during the period between 1996 and 2015 period. The six Worldwide Governance indicators (WGI) (voice and accountability (VAA), political stability and the absence of violence/terrorism, government effectiveness (GEFF), regulatory quality (RQ), rule of law (RL) and control of corruption) were used to measure the quality of governance in these countries. The results show that an increase in every governance indicator except control of corruption leads to a decrease in public debt. Design/methodology/approach The authors estimate a dynamic specification of debt to GDP ratio to study how governance affects public debt accumulation in the Arabian Gulf countries during the 1996–2015 period. The dependent variable in this study is the ratio of public debt to GDP. This study relies on the six measures of institution’s quality given by the WGI. These variables are the VAA, political stability and absence of violence (PSAV)/terrorism, GEFF, RQ, RL and control of corruption. Additional control variables are also incorporated to account for the omitted variables bias. These include the rate of inflation (Al-Marhubi, 2000) and the independent variable lagged one period. The study of the statistical relationship between institutional quality and public debt allows us to quantify the direct effect of governance on public debt, which is the effect that goes through an increase in spending or a reduction in fiscal revenues and not through a decrease in GDP growth. The econometric estimation is carried out using panel fixed effects and GLS random effects. Findings The estimation results confirm the core hypothesis, which considers that the poor governance in a country the higher is the ratio of public debt to GDP, ceteris paribus. Indeed, five of the worldwide Governance Index are negatively correlated with public debt ratio. These indices are GEFF, VAA, PSAV, RQ and RL. Empirical findings for other independent variables are consistent with those of empirical studies in the literature. The coefficient on the independent variable per capita income has the theoretically expected negative sign and it is highly statistically significant, implying that the higher the per capita income in a country, the lower the ratio of public debt. The independent variable government expenditure has the theoretically expected positive sign suggesting that the higher the government expenditure, the higher the ratio of public debt. The education variable has negative but not statistically significant coefficients. The independent variables (inflation, unemployment rate and lag debt ratio) have the expected signs and are highly statistically significant, implying that the higher their value in a country, the higher the ratio of public debt to GDP. Having the theoretically expected effect, the GDP growth variable is negatively correlated with public debt ratio but its coefficients are not statistically significant. Originality/value Although the literature on the damaging effects of poor governance on growth is abundant (Tanzi and Davoodi, 2002; Mauro, 1996; Mo, 2001; Mauro, 1996; Brunetti et al., 1997; Campos et al., 1999; Al-Marhubi, 2000; Depken and Lafountain, 2006; Mauro, 1998), only very recently the relationship between institutional quality and public debt accumulation has been addressed. By reviewing the research on political and institutional determinants of public debt, it was found that there are few studies, which have examined regional differences, and even fewer ones have focused on the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Therefore, this paper aims to fill the gap by focusing on this economic region. Furthermore, when studying the relationship between the quality of institutions and the accumulation of public debt, existing studies focus only on corruption index and neglect other determinants of governance. Thus, a second contribution of the study is to investigate how institution quality, through the six WGI, affects public debt accumulation. Furthermore, given the recent rise in public debt in GCC countries, an increasingly important question is what policy actions do these countries need to take to ensure that their debt will be sustainable and will not overwhelm their financial system? we can add: while there has been much attention given to the political and economic explanations of public debt accumulation in developing and developed countries on a global scale, scholars so far have not focused on this debate in high income oil producers.

The recent round of debt relief has restored debt sustainability in many low-income countries (LICs). This, along with a continued search for yield and desire for portfolio diversification by investors, has increased the range of viable financing options, including international bonds, for many emerging market (EM) economies and LICs. This paper presents some of the advantages and disadvantages of international debut bonds, within a debt sustainability framework. It outlines key preconditions and discusses strategic considerations that countries need to take into account when contemplating bond issuance in international markets for the first time. In this context, the paper also discusses some typical pitfalls in accessing international capital markets, including excessive issue size relative to the intended use of bond proceeds, issuance of bullet bonds, and inadequate preparation for accessing the markets.

Previous studies on the effect of corruption on public debt have produced mixed results. Therefore, in an attempt to explain these ambiguous results, we tried this study examine the impact of corruption on the public debt while taking into account the role of democracy. For this reason, we used the general method of moments (GMM) to empirically test this impact in 16 countries of the Arab world over the 2000/2016 period. In fact, the obtained results through the use of the GMM model showed that the higher levels of corruption can lead to high levels of public debt. Moreover, given the role of democracy, an increase in corruption can lead to an increase in public debt if the level of democracy is too low, while if it is high, public debt stops to rise. In fact, the obtained results indicate that a high public spending and a larger shadow economy amplify the effect of corruption on the public debt. Moreover, our estimation confirms the existence of a non-linear relationship between democracy and public debt. On the other hand, there is a threshold beyond which the Arab countries can manage to control their debt. Therefore, to check for the robustness of the results, we made estimations of the impact of the democratization process on public debt through the use of different indexes for both corruption and democracy beside a different proxy for the shadow economy. In fact, these variables continue to have a statistically significant effect on public debt. As a consequence, the results showed that higher levels of corruption, a larger shadow economy, and a lower value of democracy are conducive to the accumulation of public debt. Some policy implications and recommendations for the Arab countries are also discussed.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the perception of UAE investors regarding their investment preference of Sukuk versus conventional bonds. Design/methodology/approach A modified questionnaire was used in this study with the objective of answering the research questions and testing the developed hypothesis. The survey was conducted on a sample of investors of the UAE Dubai Financial Market, which is one of the main exchanges where Sukuk are traded. Findings The results indicate that Sukuk features (characteristics) represent the most important influencing factor in the willingness of UAE investors to invest in Islamic Sukuk, followed by the religious factor, as strongly predicted, followed by the expected return and followed by the availability of information. Finally, the results indicate that there is no significant difference in investment in Sukuk among UAE investors based on investors’ gender. Originality/value The current study is considered the first of its kind conducted on the UAE. As far as the authors know, there are no studies that focus specifically on social and economic factors that affect the propensity of investors to trade in Sukuk.

Recent political events and the subsequent movements in financial markets both in the developing and the developed countries raise the instincts regarding the interaction of political risks and financial markets and increase the importance of understanding the behavior of financial markets against political risks. Therefore the purpose of this study is to explain the impact of political risks on the returns of securities traded on capital markets in Turkey in the framework of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). The relation between the monthly returns of 47 companies' assets being traded on Borsa Istanbul and the political risks in Turkey between the years of 1997 and 2013 is examined in the study. Results of the analysis held by two-step regression method represent that there exists a positive and linear relation between beta and expected return. On the other hand, it is found that 4 out of 12 political risk factors, in other words internal conflict, external conflict, government stability and military in politics have a significant impact on expected return. Contrary to the other three risk factors, only the risk of government stability is found to be positively affecting asset returns.

Contemporary Arab Affairs Public finance in Arab countries: selected indicators public revenues; gross domestic product (GDP); oil and gas revenues; tax revenues; public expenditures; current and capital expenditures; government surplus/deficit; public debts

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries.

Assessing the sustainability of a given fiscal policy is especially important for countries that depend on income from exhaustible resources. Political and growth pressures may push governments to raise expenditure when revenue from exhaustible resources rises, but cutting outlays when price swings reduce income is often difficult. Traditional fiscal accounting may give a misleading view of policy sustainability. This paper argues that for countries in which a significant proportion of government revenue is derived from the exploitation of an exhaustible natural resource, fiscal policy sustainability can best be assessed within a permanent income framework that takes into account total government wealth, including the imputed wealth from reserves of natural resources. Using this framework, the paper takes a sample of six countries where government revenue from petroleum extraction is significant and draws conclusions about the sustainability of their fiscal policies during 1980-92.