Ahmad Fraz - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Ahmad Fraz

Business & Economic Review, 2017

NICE Research Journal, 2019

Bitcoin is an online communication protocol, which facilitates electronic transactions. It has gr... more Bitcoin is an online communication protocol, which facilitates electronic transactions. It has grabbed the attention of investors and researchers in the recent past. The non-regulatory feature of Bitcoin makes it riskier and the element of speculation in its trading is higher than any other financial asset. The study provides an insight into the price dynamics of Bitcoin by examining the day of the week and month of the year effect for the period 2013 to 2017. The findings of the study indicate the existence of seasonality in the return behaviour of Bitcoin as returns for Monday is higher than any other day of the week. Likewise, the returns earned during the month of November are significantly different from other months of the year. The results of the study assert a violation of the assumption of weak-form market efficiency and imply that the Bitcoin market provides an opportunity for the investors to exploit the market from its predictable behavior and fetch abnormal gains.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021

The main purpose of this study is to develop an interactive medical communication board that woul... more The main purpose of this study is to develop an interactive medical communication board that would be adaptable both in terms of language and metaphor. This board would be tested on diverse population to assess its ef icacy in clinical diagnosis to help new female immigrants and their children. Therefore, this study intends to develop an assistive visualization tool of medical communication to achieve the objective of friendly communication among foreign spouses, ill children, and medical service. This research project focuses on integrating medical and design professional ields to develop medical information and auxiliary communication tool, as well as to design doctor-patient communication APP prototype concept. Design draft and discussion with users were conducted. The study mainly adopted interviews, observations, and User Experience Innovation Design (UXID) to carry out interviews with 24 Vietnamese and Indonesian new immigrant women. These irsthand practical data were then transcribed and sorted out. By designing an APP prototype, researchers inally achieved the purpose of assisting new immigrant women in seeking health care and expressing their symptoms. This study is a pioneer study in health communication for immigrants and it can also serve as a reference for other follow-up studies.

Journal of Applied Economics and Business Studies, 2020

The study investigates the impact of bilateral trade, economic fundamentals and financial crisis ... more The study investigates the impact of bilateral trade, economic fundamentals and financial crisis on the equity market integration (EMI) of Pakistan’s equity market with its major global trading partners (China, India, USA and UK) for the period 1998 to 2016. The findings of the study indicate that bilateral trade and economic conditions have a significant impact on EMI, the export dependence of two economies may increase the EMI and import dependence reduces the EMI of two economies. Moreover, inflation differential and volatility in the bilateral exchange rate have a negative impact on EMI. It implies that inflation rates in Pakistan’s equity market are higher as compare to other markets and volatility in bilateral exchange rate may reduce trade flows and its tendency to follow other market (Bracker, Docking , & Koch, 1999). Furthermore, the financial crisis in an economy may reduce the EMI with its trading partners and EMI between different markets is affected by their bilateral e...

Journal of Management and Governance, 2020

We investigate further the inconsistencies of the diversification–performance nexus by introducin... more We investigate further the inconsistencies of the diversification–performance nexus by introducing information asymmetry as a mediating factor. Data of 12,176 firms from eleven developing, emerging and developed economies over the 2010–2017 period were used to conduct a panel data analysis excluding the financial industries. To test the impact of corporate diversification on firm performance, we use a firm-year fixed effects panel data model to control for firm heterogeneity and any other unobservable firm-level attributes, for example, management quality, corporate norms, and culture which are supposed to be time-invariant and may influence the results. The findings are qualitatively valid when we use system dynamic panel data General Methods of Moments (GMM) estimator for endogeneity concerns. Besides, we follow a three-step procedure proposed by Muller and Judd (J Pers Soc Psychol 89(6):852–863, 2005) to test the potential mediating effect of information asymmetry. We find that industrial diversification is significantly and positively associated with firm performance while international diversification shows no effect on performance in developing and emerging markets. We also find that information asymmetry strongly mediates the relationship between corporate diversification strategies and firm performance in developing and emerging economies as compared to developed economies. Our findings suggest that corporate diversification is not considered as a value decreasing strategy that calls for more attention of regulators on enabling managers to show the potential advantages of corporate diversification that generates a positive signal to shareholders.

Finance Research Letters, 2020

Abstract This paper investigates whether the presence of female directors is significantly smalle... more Abstract This paper investigates whether the presence of female directors is significantly smaller for Islamic banks than their conventional counterparts and more importantly how different is the performance of Islamic banks with females in the board vis-a-vis conventional banks. We find that Islamic banks have just slightly lower female directors in their boards and their performance is not affected by the appointment of females on the board differently than conventional banks. Our findings highlight that promotion of gender equality and adopting inclusion culture even in religiously conscious corporations such as Islamic banks do not adversely affect the performance.

Journal of Business Economics and Management, 2020

This paper investigates the effect of bank competition and financial stability on economic growth... more This paper investigates the effect of bank competition and financial stability on economic growth by examining panel-data from 38 European countries over 2001 to 2017. Bank competition is measured with the Boone indicator, and bank stability with Z-scores and non-performing loan ratios, all at the country level. This study employs a fixed-effect estimator, as well as a system generalized method of moment (GMM) estimator to control unobserved heterogeneity, endogeneity, the dynamic effect of economic growth, and reverse causality in its estimation. Results show that bank stability significantly contributes to economic growth in Europe. Economic growth falls during crisis periods (both the global financial crisis and the local banking crisis), highlighting the importance of a resilient banking system during crisis periods. Moreover, empirical outcomes show that lower banking competition supports economic growth and increases financial stability. This study provides a framework for ban...

THE LAHORE JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, 2016

While corporate diversification is a fundamental issue both in the management literature and in c... more While corporate diversification is a fundamental issue both in the management literature and in corporate policy, the question that remains is whether it destroys or enhances firm value. This empirical study of the corporate diversification–value relationship for Pakistani firms looks at the role of asymmetric information and insider trading over a 10-year sample period, 2005–14. Using the industrial entropy index and purchase ratio to capture corporate diversification and insider trading, respectively, the study provides empirical evidence that questions the agency theory-based explanation of the corporate diversification–value relationship. Our results show that, in cases of asymmetric information, insiders increase the purchase of their firms’ shares in the open market when diversification is high. This contradicts the corporate diversification–value destruction stance of agency theory as well as the idea that outside investors’ undervaluation occurs due to information asymmetrie...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

This paper investigates whether and how differently performance of Islamic banks is affected when... more This paper investigates whether and how differently performance of Islamic banks is affected when female directors sit in the board. We study a unique sample of 1,528 observations on 71 Islamic banks and 120 conventional banks operating in eleven Muslim countries over 2010-2017 period. We find that Islamic banks with more female directors have a lower credit risk and inefficiency relative to conventional banks. However, we find no significant relationship for other performance indicators such as net interest margin and profitability. Overall, the analysis shows that the performance of Islamic banks is not adversely affected by the appointment of females in the board. The results have implications for promotion of gender equality and inclusive corporate culture in countries with dual banking systems.

Journal of Financial Crime, 2021

Purpose This study aims to examine whether the soundness of Islamic banks is differently affected... more Purpose This study aims to examine whether the soundness of Islamic banks is differently affected by corruption compared to conventional counterparts. Moreover, the Shari’ah supervisory board (SSB), as a cornerstone of Islamic banking and representing a multi-layer corporate governance model, is expected to moderate the influence of corruption on soundness for Islamic banks. Design/methodology/approach This study considers a unique sample of 1,528 observations on 71 Islamic banks and 120 conventional banks operating in 11 emerging and developing Muslim countries over the 2010–2017 period. This study uses generalized least squares regression model and the coefficients are estimated by using random-effects estimator. In addition, to overcome a potential endogeneity concern for corruption and bank stability relationship, this study uses Two-Stage Least Squares regression instrumental variable estimator. Findings The authors find consistent evidence that higher levels of corruption adve...