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The poverty reduction and financial inclusion of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030 can be significantly facilitated by the microfinance industry. However, it is pertinent to assess the sustainability of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in serving this purpose. The estimation of productivity of MFIs in Bangladesh gives a glimpse of their ability to fulfil the dual objectives of financial sustainability and social outreach. Hence, this study aims to measure the productivity of MFIs in Bangladesh using secondary data obtained from the Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX) market. The study employs Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI), which is an extension of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate the overall, social and financial productivities of 26 MFIs in Bangladesh during the period from 2009 to 2018. In general, this study revealed that majority of the MFIs’ overall productivity score varies between 0.9 and 1.20. Moreover, we observed that the social and financial productivities of MFIs in Bangladesh progressed during the entire study period, except for the years 2011 and 2017. This development may be attributed to the average growth in catch-up and technological effect witnessed during the study period. The study has also applied sensitivity analysis by changing the output to evaluate the robustness of the overall productivity results; consequently, the new estimates followed a similar pattern (mostly) and further corroborate the outcomes of this study. JEL Classifications: C14, O43, G21

Considering the reverberations of financial crisis of 2007–09 that the banking industry terribly witnessed, this paper aims to estimate both the non-bias-corrected and bias-corrected efficiency by employing the data envelopment analysis and Simar–Wilson double bootstrapping regression techniques over the period of 2011–2017 and see how the financial inclusion impacts on Islamic banks. This study finds that most of the countries, except some Asian and Middle-Eastern countries, have inconsistent efficiency trends in Islamic banking sector. It also shows that financial inclusion is significantly allied with Islamic banking efficiency. Eventually, the results propose that Islamic banks are still bearing the consequence of that economic recession and, therefore, bank should focus more on financial inclusion since those banks having sound and inclusive financial environment are seen enjoying higher level of financial efficiency.

This paper aims to estimate the efficiency scores of 153 Islamic banks of 32 countries during the period 2011 to 2017 by deploying data envelopment analysis and Simar–Wilson double bootstrapping regression techniques to determine how financial inclusion and its interaction effect with GDP growth impact on Islamic bankingefficiency to promote inclusive sustainable growth. The findings show that the efficiency trends of Islamic banks in most countries have been inconsistent in the aftermath of the global financial crisis; this indicates that the banking industry is still bearing the consequences of that recession. However, Islamic banks in Bangladesh,Malaysia, Mauritia, Qatar, Tunisia, and Sudan are performing efficiently and, in spite of being war-affected countries, Islamic banks in Iraq and Palestine, more interestingly, have also seen an ascending trend in terms of improving their efficiency levels. The results foreground that to improve Islamic banks’ efficiency, financial inclusion (FI) must play a key role. Moreover, the effect of the interaction between FI and GDP growth suggests that FI plays a significant role in sustainable development, which creates a positive relationship between inclusive sustainable growth and the efficiency of Islamic banks. Since research on FI is an ongoing process, this paper contributes to the existing literature and methodology pertinent to the subject by analysing bothnon-bias and bias-corrected efficiency through the utilisation of more recent data from Islamic banks.

Fintech innovations are rapidly transforming the global financial industry and easing the financial inclusion initiatives of microfinance institutions (MFIs). Such technological transformations are expected to promote stability in the financial system and in turn reduce the risk-taking behavior of its main actors. However, there is limited or no empirical evidence to confirm the impact of fintech-based financial inclusion (FinFI) on the risk-taking behavior of Sub-Saharan African MFIs. Thus, we have developed a new index to measure FinFI and empirically assess its role in reducing the risk-taking attitude of MFIs. The validity of our results was confirmed by using various robustness tests.

Banks play a crucial role in bringing stability and economic development through their expected contribution in proper financial resource mobilisation across the economy. Despite the importance, there is little focus in recent literature which provided the empirical evidence how the global financial crisis affect the bank efficiency in Bangladesh. Thus, this paper aims to examine the effect of the global financial crisis and other factors on the efficiency of Bangladesh commercial banks. By employing the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method, we computed the technical efficiency of individual banks operating in the Bangladesh banking sector during 2000 to 2013. The empirical findings indicate that the Bangladesh banking sector has exhibited the highest efficiency level during 2001, while efficiency seems to be at the lowest level during 2010. The study finds that crisis along with bank size, capital adequacy ratio, return on average equity and real interest rate have a significant effect on bank efficiency in Bangladesh. In order to keep the sound financial development of Bangladesh, banks operating in the Bangladesh banking sector have to consider all the potential technologies which could improve their profit efficiency levels, since the main motive of banks is to maximise shareholders’ value or wealth through profit maximisation.

This chapter examines the economic impact of the migrants' return to Kerala, India during the Gulf oil crisis 2014-2016. Many migrants returned to their homeland during the crisis because they could not find work in the Middle East. The Kerala economy confronted this as one of the biggest threats which directly affected the economy. Almost USD 900 million had been brought to the homeland as remittance from Non-Residential Keralites (NRKs) working in Gulf countries. But the return of a large number of NRKs decreased the remittances to 10-15%. This chapter proposes Social Impact Sukuk to support the migrants who are back to their homelands from GCC countries. Data and information are collected from primary and secondary sources. This study provides policy implications for Kerala state government to examine the impact of returning NRKs issue and a feasible solution for their immediate rehabilitation.

Liquidity risk may arise from diverse operations of financial intermediaries, facilitators and supporters as they are fully liable to make available liquidity when required by the third party. Incase of Islamic Banks additional efforts are required for scaling liquidity management due to their unique characteristics and conformity with Shariah principles. The objective of this study is to look into the liquidity risk associated with the solvency of the financial institutions, with a purpose to evaluate liquidity risk management (LRM) through a comparative analysis between conventional and Islamic banks of Bangladesh. This paper investigates the significance of Size of the Firm, Net Working Capital, Return on Equity, Capital Adequacy and Return on Assets (ROA), on Liquidity Risk Management in conventional and Islamic banks in Bangladesh. The study has taken six mid-size banks- three conventional and three Islamic banks as samples. It is based on secondary data which are collected from the selected banks’ annual reports, covering a period of 2007-2011. Independent variables that have positive but insignificant relation are; size of the bank and net working capital to liquidity risk in Islamic banks and in case of conventional banks size of bank is negatively related with the liquidity risk. Only return on assets is positively affecting the liquidity risk at 10% level in case of conventional banks, but in Islamic banks the relationship is insignificant. The other variables are found to be insignificant in affecting the liquidity risk for both the conventional and Islamic banks in BangladeshJournal of Business and Technology (Dhaka) Vol.10(2) 2015; 18-35

This paper aims to investigate whether, and to what extent, total quality management (TQM) influences bank loan quality. We propose an approach to measure TQM for evaluating this relationship. The proposed measure is the residual from the Fama–MacBeth regression based on bank efficiency proxied by the income-to-cost ratio. Our proposed TQM measure is statistically significant. We obtain data of 581 US commercial banks from the SNL Financial database for the period 1991–2013 with a total of 13,303 bank-year observations. The result shows that TQM is positively related to bank loan quality. This suggests that the implementation of better TQM can help management to monitor borrowers, improve competition and efficiency, manage good-quality loan portfolios, minimise expenses, and generate more revenues. This research has several implications for regulation, TQM implementation, and policy for the banking industry. In sum, an association between TQM and loan quality allows us to expand our knowledge of the speci...

World leaders signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 to keep global temperatures well below 2 °C. This Paris Agreement will facilitate achieving Sustainable Development Goal-13 (Climate Action) by 2030. However, without collective action, it is quite impossible to achieve the terms of this agreement. In this regard, the mass media can contribute to making people aware of the subsequent effect of climate change at all levels. The mass media, as a source of information, might play a significant role in raising public awareness and understanding of climate sciences. This paper examines the influence of the mass media on awareness, attitudes and knowledge of climate change, which may lead to environmentally friendly behaviour. This paper employs structural equation modelling to examine the relationship among the studied variables. The results reveal that the mass media influences awareness, attitudes and knowledge of climate change. This study also finds mediating effects of awareness, attitudes and knowledge of climate change between the mass media and environmentally friendly behaviour. The results imply that the mass media contributes to creating awareness, enhancing understating and shaping favourable attitudes towards climate change. The findings could guide policymakers to take appropriate steps to promote a greater awareness of climate change using the mass media.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the importance of geographical location in the banking sector efficiency of the Sino-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region, and how the location was affected before, during and after the financial crisis. Using a panel of data from 407 banks from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam from 2000&ndash, 2013, this study applies data envelopment analysis, Tobit regression, bootstrapping, and Simar and Wilson double bootstrapping regression. The empirical evidence suggests that the banking market has an important and significant role in the efficiency of the banking sector in the Sino-ASEAN region. The significant country&rsquo, s coefficients suggest that during the pre-crisis period, banks belonging to China and Indonesia were more likely to be efficient due to the geographical location effect. The study finds the same tendency among Chinese banks in the crisis period as in the period before the crisis. Overall, the results suggest that Chinese banks outperform banks from the ASEAN countries in terms of efficiency. This study raises some significant policy implications for improving bank efficiency.