Macroeconomic Impact of Islamic Bank Financing in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Islamic banking is a fast growing segment of the financial system in Saudi Arabia and has effects on the economic performance of a great importance to the economic growth. This study is to assist bridging an existing research gap of exploring how the Islamic banking helps the macroeconomic growth of K.S.A. The study mainly to employe the statistical analysis to investigate the macroeconomic impact of Islamic bank financing (IBF) in the Saudi economy from the year of 2001 to 2017 by looking into independent variables of the IBF and the total financing against the macroeconomic factors: gross domestic product, gross fixed capital formation, inflation, international trade, and unemployment. The analyzed data are obtained from Bankscope websites, Bloomberg and International Monetary Fund (IMF) databases. The main results from the Vector Auto Regression (VAR) model in the E-views show both of the TF and IBF have an impact on GFCF, but not on the inflation. The IBF effects on the unemployment, the international trade, and with no significant effect on the GDP growth. Although, the TF data of the growth equation show an influence on GDP growth and international trade.