This research paper delves into the intricate dynamics between the person ality characteristics of social media users and investor behaviour within the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). In an era where information dissemination occurs at unprece dented speeds through platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and financial forums, the study aims to unravel the impact of personality characteristics on investor sentiment and subsequent stock market volatility. By incorporating the renowned Big Five person ality characteristics, including openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeable ness, and neuroticism, the research examines how individual personality profiles shape investment decisions. The unique economic and cultural context of the ASE further enriches the investigation, offering insights into the region-specific nuances of investor behaviour. The study applied a quantitative analysis using structural equation modeling and concluded that all personality characteristics of the Big Five model had a positive impact on investor behaviour. The findings not only contribute to the academic discourse on investor behaviour but also offer practical implications for investors, financial institutions, and regulators operating within the Southeastern European market.

Following the trends in the world, especially in the Muslim world, where Islamic banking started to emerge, there was a need for Islamic banking in Turkey as well. Sukuk is one of the services that has recently become more popular in Turkey due to the legal regulations that enable Islamic banks in the country to issue it and be competitive in the market. This paper tries to examine the applied contracts for the issuance of sukuk and recommend some structures by first explaining the path of Islamic finance in Turkey and its services and then sukuk regulations and contracts. We find that murabaha, wakalah, and ijarah are the most popular contractual forms among the five approved financial contracts (ijarah, wakalah, murabahah, mudarabah-musharakah, and istisna’a) by the Capital Market Board of Turkey for the issuance of sukuk. As we can see from the sukuk structures, the debtbased modes of finance used predominantly in sukuk issuance and priced with the same interest-based benchmarks, it seems that the practices of sukuk are far from the ideals of Islamic economic principles. Therefore, the sukuk issuers should, away from over-usage of debt-based sukuk, should move towards more equity-based sukuk.

This paper discusses the concepts, structures and pricing mechanism of Islamic home financing models such as Murabahah, Tawarruq, Musharakah-Muntanaqisah, Parallel Istisna and Build and Sell financing models. The discussion demonstrates that it is essential to have home financing based on Shariah principles which fulfill needs of Muslim consumers. The paper examines the various models with appropriate examples. It also evaluates critically products of Islamic home financing models. The availability of various home financing instruments in Islamic banks allows Muslim consumers to achieve their home financing needs. In this paper, we examine the various home financing models and propose an alternative home financing model. Moving forward, more variety of instruments which invite less Shariah issues must be offered in the market to ensure a more vibrant Islamic banking system. As contribution of the study, the existing literature focuses only on the concepts and structures of home financing models whereas the current study integrates the pricing models into home financing models.

The study of financial shock propagation across markets has motivated numerous researchers to investigate the mechanisms of return and volatility spillovers in order to prevent harmful shock transmission. This article studies the contemporaneous spillovers by employing a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model with Markov switching covariance matrix to solve the identification problem. The proposed method offers a smooth convergence that handles several drawbacks of existing procedures. Moreover, this article develops a new framework to analyze the contemporaneous asymmetric volatility spillovers, which adds a great deal of knowledge by separating the effects of good news and bad news on shock transmissions. Application on major exchange rate returns and volatilities shows that the contemporaneous effects have different intensities for all pairwise currencies. Furthermore, the asymmetric analysis reveals that good (bad) volatility has a contemporaneous positive effect on good (bad) volatility, while the risk due to good (bad) news negatively affects the risk due to an opposite shock.

The aim of this study is to explore the impact of political news posts, interactive discussion factors, and uncivil comments on participants’ online incivility. The moderating effects of cognitive and affective involvement have also been considered. The data have been gathered using self-administered questionnaires from 458 respondents. The results indicate that political news posts having interactive discussion factors positively impacts the online uncivil behaviour of the participants. The uncivil comments initiated by other users also significantly impact the participants’ incivility. The data have also been analysed for the mediation effects. The construct of affective involvement emerged as an effective mediator as compared to cognitive involvement. This study posits several theoretical implications for the literature. The combination of the variables used is also rare in the literature. The findings of this study are useful for behavioural scientists, as the outcomes have a potential to predict the online behaviour of Pakistani users.

This study examines the connection between crude oil and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region stock markets by employing a regime-switching approach. The methodology provides new insights on how the linkage between oil and GCC stock markets may fluctuate in different economic or market regimes, which is crucial for understanding the transmission of oil shocks and tailoring policy responses. The findings indicate that the spillovers between the underlying assets are asymmetric. Specifically, during the turmoil periods, the connectedness is intense among these assets, whereas during tranquil periods, the linkage is moderate. The intense spillovers regime is short-lived, which corroborates the existing literature of a relatively stable oil market. Furthermore, an increase in oil prices can positively contribute to the profits of firms that are heavily dependent on oil, leading to an increase in the linkage between these countries and crude oil. Results have crucial suggestions for investors and decision-makers in the GCC region.

The female labor force participation holds significant implications for various aspects of society, the economy, and individual lives. Understanding its significance involves recognizing the multifaceted impact of women’s participation in the workforce. In this context, the current study investigates the factors influencing the female labor force participation rate in Saudi Arabia while using a set of independent variables such as GDP growth, employment-to-population ratio, inflation, urban population growth, tertiary school enrollment, labor force with advanced education, fertility rate, and age dependency ratio, covering a period from 2000 to 2022. The results reveal that the employment-to-population ratio, inflation rate, urbanization, and age dependency ratio have positive and statistically significant impacts on the female labor force participation rate. This research offers valuable insights for formulating policies to foster female empowerment and overcome the obstacles that hinder their economic participation.

This chapter delves into the complex yet fascinating arena of Islamic finance, looking at its historical foundations and dealing with today’s complexities. There is a huge struggle in Islamic economics in meeting the contemporary needs while practising moderate framework, observing the difference between strictly abiding by the rules and achieving the ethical goals beyond the profit. It urges for a value-driven approach within institutions and the implementation of the zakat, sadaqah and waqf systems to fill the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) financing gap. Seizing the opportunities, the chapter promotes the necessity of Islamic fiqh experts with current Shari’ah body of knowledge in considering the ethical and legal aspects alongside fintech. This is essentially to ensure that the implementation of Islamic finance enables the sustainable economic development. Looking toward the Industry 5.0, it expects a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) with Islamic finance and identifies Islamic social finance as a powerful socially-driven tool. In the end, the chapter lays out Islamic finance as the powerful tool to work together to achieve an ethical, equitable, and sustainable financial system.

Digital transformation has made enormous changes in the banking domain, where financial technology (fintech) is the salient driving force inside it. For Islamic banking, artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most innovative technologies that has shifted banks into the entire virtual environment. In this context, the main objectives of this chapter are to discuss the current application of AI in the Islamic banking industry, to identify the challenges faced by the banks in adapting AI while ensuring Shari’ah compliant in their operations, and to shed light on the future of banking and how it will influence Islamic banks in this digital era. This chapter also provides several examples of the application of several Shari’ah robo-advisors used by Islamic banks. Robo advisors are mainly an advanced AI tool involved in investment and portfolio management. The unique value of AI for Islamic banks lies within its own-Shari’ah AI framework that is used to fulfill Shari’ah-related matters, which requires active collaboration between Shari’ah scholars, regulatory bodies, and Islamic banks. Despite all the challenges, AI holds immense potential for Islamic banking to improve efficiency, accessibility, and risk management. Finally, the chapter paves the way for further discussion on building a responsible and innovative Islamic financial system in the era of AI.

This chapter is about the role Islamic finance has been able to stay on the track of facing social–economical predicaments and on the way to sustainable development with the involvement of social prosperity. When trying to investigate the convergence between social finance and Islamic standards, what is argued is that a need for observing financial operations in the same way as prodevelopment theories arise. It is considered that in a holistic approach, which assumed a social justice as the basic ethic of the Islamic financial system, the final result tends to be more appropriate. One of the main elements that makes Islamic banking stand up in a high grade is maqasid al-Shari'ah due to its responsibility to assess social performance and apply new updated technologies for sustainable growth based on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition to that, the situation is critically observed and the gap between ambitions functions and the reality in Islamic banking and finance is also pointed out to find some reconciliation between aspirations and facts. While its ancient foundations did point to the prospect of Islamic banking to serve as a major contributor to the social and economic development, the industry players of today have now been preoccupied with the profit-making objectives and financial performance rather than social banking. This chapter focuses on the role of Islamic finance as a breakthrough force and shows the way that this influence could shape the discussions of financial systems, so that economics follow, and ethical principles and become factors for the national economy to grow more robustness.