Volume 20, Issue 2

This study examined the correlation between corporate governance mechanisms and insurance risk in Ethiopian insurance companies. The study employed various multivariate regression approaches, including fixed effects, random effects models, and two-step system GMM. The study analyzed 136 observations from 17 insurance firms, with one omitted due to lack of data. The research used two regression models to examine the link between corporate governance mechanisms and insurance risk. Having independent directors on the board was discovered to have a notable and unfavorable influence on operational risk, whereas the size of the board did not impact operational or liquidity risk. The frequency of board meetings did not show a significant relationship with operational risk, but it did have a notable positive correlation with liquidity risk. Audit committees were found to have a negative and significant influence on both operational and liquidity risk. Gender diversity on the board had an insignificant but negative effect on insurance risk, mainly operational risk. Overall, the study emphasized the importance of independent directors and audit committees in managing risk in Ethiopian insurance companies. This research provides valuable insights for academic policymakers, such as the National Bank of Ethiopia, insurance companies, and other organizations.

This study examines Lebanon’s enduring financial and economic crisis, exacerbated by economic challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Port of Beirut explosion. With over 80 % currency devaluation due to sovereign debt default, the crisis has intensified poverty and unemployment, compounded by political turmoil. Using survey data from 178 stakeholders, experts, and academics, this research explores the intricate drivers of Lebanon’s crisis and offers insights for policymakers. Employing quantitative methods, it uncovers the intertwined role of financial mismanagement, government failures, mounting public debt, financial engineering techniques, and political instability in driving the crisis. Recommendations emphasize prudent financial practices, sound governance, and policy interventions. This study sheds light on Lebanon’s complex financial and economic challenges with data-backed perspectives from diverse stakeholders, providing valuable insights for management practitioners and scholars navigating crises in tumultuous environments. It aims to contribute to the management discourse, equipping stakeholders with actionable strategies for addressing and preventing similar crises. It also explores the interplay between stakeholder perspectives and the determinants of the financial crisis in Lebanon. It delves into the interconnected nature of the crisis and demonstrates how stakeholders from various sectors and backgrounds mirror the factors identified in the literature.

Following the implementation of capital market reforms, Saudi Arabia has opened up its stock market to international investors. This liberalisation has led to the inclusion of the stock exchange into leading global indices, which is expected to lead to an influx of foreign investment. Thus, it is important and timely to examine the efficiency of the Saudi stock market. To that end, this paper conducts a comprehensive investigation of the predictive ability and profitability of a popular trading rule, the moving average rule, using firm-level data for the Saudi stock market over the period 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2017. The results show that the moving average rule has predictive ability; the active rules for a majority of the sample companies outperformed the corresponding passive strategy. Furthermore, the results were economically significant as the rules were profitable even after the consideration of transaction costs. The results also showed that the most profitable moving average rules were those with short-moving average lengths, and that the introduction of a bandwidth, which serves to eliminate weak trading signals, had a positive impact on rule profitability. Importantly, the analysis showed that the most profitable component of the rule related to short selling as these trades resulted in higher profits than the long positions. A disaggregated analysis of sectors showed that the trading rules outperformed the buy-and-hold strategy in all seven industries considered, while the analysis of covariance revealed the importance of careful selection of filter size. Overall, the analysis documents significant inefficiencies in the Saudi stock market and suggests that the employment of a simple trading rule, based on past price data, can yield substantial profits across companies and sectors even in a costly trading environment. These findings suggest that the recent reforms that were implemented to improve the efficiency of the Saudi stock market have been suboptimal, and that further regulatory reform is required.