Testing of causality relationship between Indian and Australian mutual funds performance: standard vs customized benchmarks

The purpose of the paper is to select the right market proxy for calculating the expected return, since critically evaluating proxies or selecting the correct proxy market portfolio is essential for portfolio management because the change in the market portfolio proxy affects returns. In this study, monthly data of equity indices are evaluated to find out the better market proxy. The indices taken are BSE 30 (Sensex), Nifty 50, BSE 100, BSE 200, and BSE 500. The macroeconomic variables used in the study are industrial production index (IIP), consumer price index (CPI), money supply (M1), and exchange rate in India. To avoid the influence of COVID-19, the research period was from January 2013 to December 2019 to critically evaluate these proxies in order to find the most appropriate market proxy. This paper reveals a noteworthy relationship between stock market returns and macroeconomic factors, while suggesting that the BSE 500 is a better choice for all equity indices, as the index also shows a significant relationship with all macroeconomic variables. BSE500 is a composite index comprising all sectors with low, mid and large cap securities, therefore it reflects the impact of macroeconomic factors most efficiently, taking it as a market proxy. This study was carried out in the context of India and can be replicated for other countries.

Islamic finance has grown rapidly in the recent years particularly in the Middle East and the world. It receives a great attention of bankers and financial scholars due to its stability during financial shocks and crises. The paper uses empirical analysis to test the role of Islamic banking in enhancing the economic growth of United Arab Emirates (UAE). Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross formation (GF), and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) are used as representatives for economic growth, while Islamic banks’ investments are used as a representative for Islamic financial sector in the UAE. The study uses time series techniques to test the link between the variables. In the current study, co-integration along with error correction models is utilized. All econometric work is done using Eviews. The findings reveal that the causal relationship between Islamic banks’ investments and economic growth of UAE is supply-leading direction. Furthermore, the findings depict that Islamic investments have contributed in increasing investments and in bringing FDI into the country in the long-term. The study also shows that there is two-way association between Islamic banks’ investments and FDI. It shows that FDI supports Islamic banking and Islamic banking brings FDI. The paper concludes that authorities of the UAE should devote more attention for this growing banking sector by facilitating regulations for establishing new Islamic banks and then creating a suitable environment for their growth and progress in the UAE.

Nigerian economy depends on oil as the major source of revenue, failure to diversify the revenue base has raised questions about its sustainability and implication on the economy. This study uses market capitalization, broad money stock, credit to private sector, prime interest rate and deposit liability as proxies for the financial sector, while output in the manufacturing sector and manufacturing employment are used as proxies for manufacturing performance. The study examines the causal effects, shock effect and long-run impact using Granger Non-Causality, Vector Error Correction Model, and Dynamic Ordinary Least Square method, respectively. The results showed unidirectional causality, confirming the hypothesis of the ‘supply-leading view’ and ‘demand-following view’ except for market capitalization and output in the manufacturing sector, where independence was observed. The variance decomposition shows that the forecast error shock of credit to private sector and prime interest rate show more variations in manufacturing sector performance than other financial indicators. The long-run result using output in manufacturing sector as dependent variable shows a positive significant relationship with other financial sector indicators, except for broad money stock and deposit liability. This study recommended credit channel for transmission of monetary policy using interest rate to improve the performance of manufacturing sector, among others.