Bashar Abu Khalaf

Determinants of Capital Structure in Various Circumstances: Could They Be Similar?

The financial economics literature has given the capital structure choice of firms a lot of attention. Indeed, this literature includes not only econometric analysis of the determinants of capital structure, but also surveys of Chief Financial Officers on this financial decision. This paper reports the leverage ratios of listed Saudi and Palestinian non-financial firms and examines whether the differences in the determinants of their ratios are due to firms-specific factors, or country-specific difference. Based on a total of 55 listed Saudi firms and 18 listed Palestinian firms during the period 2006-2012, and using the Seemingly Unrelated Regression, and Panel data Analysis, the results indicate that factors like asset structure and firm profitability impact the capital structure of both sets of firms. However, the differences in their impact are due to country-specific and not firm-specific factors. This result is not really surprising given that both sets of firms operated under different political and economic circumstances.

On the Bid-Spread in The Jordanian Banking Sector: What are the Implications?

This paper measures the bid-ask spread for all listed Jordanian banks and examines its’ determinants. Based on a total of 15 banks and the time period 2012-2014, the results show that Jordanian banks’ stocks suffer from relatively high liquidity cost. This finding has a number of implications to the banks’ cost of capital, and the behavior of their stocks’ return. In addition, unless the management of the capital market takes the issue of stock liquidity more seriously, it is argued that such listed firms (banks) might choose to cross-list their stocks or leave the local market altogether and list their stocks abroad. As expected, the objective of such a move is to improve their stocks’ liquidity and hence, realize the envisaged benefits.

BANKS OFFER LOTTERY PRIZES: WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS?

The primary goal of this interdisciplinary paper is to examine whether or not the adoption of depositor-focused marketing tool (Lottery prizes) pays in the Jordanian banking system. The fact that about half of the commercial banks offer lottery (cash) prizes to their customers (depositors), it would be interesting for academics in finance and marketing, bank managers, and bank shareholders, to examine the impact of this marketing policy on the performance of this sector in terms of return on assets and net interest margin. Based on a total of thirteen (13) Jordanian commercial banks and the time period 2002-2012, the results indicate that lottery prizes have a positive and significant impact on the accounting performance of banks. However, this positive impact comes at the expense of bank efficiency. In other words, it is concluded that the extra “cost” incurred by banks that offer cash prizes are “passed on” to their customers in the form of wider net interest margin.