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The purpose of this study is to quantify the impact of Ramadan on both the level and the growth of global raw sugar price.

The study uses a dummy and a fractional variable to capture Ramadan to overcome the asynchronicity of time between Ramadan fasting (which is based on the Islamic lunar calendar) and the movement in prices (which follows the Gregorian solar calendar). To capture the seasonality of sugar production, the data on sugar price span 34 years so that the Islamic calendar makes a complete cycle of the Gregorian calendar. The empirical model is estimated using both autoregressive integrated moving average model and unobserved components model.

The results show that monthly raw sugar prices in the global market increases by roughly 6.06 per cent (or $17.78 per metric ton) every year ahead of Ramadan.

The study illustrates the implications of the results for the consumption of imported sugar in Bangladesh.

The study uses a broader set of Ramadan indicators in its empirical models and checks the robustness of its baseline model using the unobserved components model. It also performs seasonal unit root tests on the global raw sugar prices.

This paper aims to make two main additions to the literature on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) monetary union. First, it emphasizes that the creation of a fiscal union is necessary for the GCC monetary union to succeed. Second, it proposes some alternatives to pegging to the dollar, which would allow the GCC countries to absorb large swings in global commodity prices (oil, food) in the short to medium run.

This paper uses exploratory research to shed light on the feasibility of a common currency for the proposed GCC Monetary Union.

Given the challenges associated with creating a GCC fiscal union as a requirement for a successful monetary union, the GCC countries could easily set up an “anti-crisis fund” to partially protect themselves from the economic and social costs of unforeseen crises. A basket, band and crawl (BBC) currency system, at an individual country level or a regional level, would allow the GCC countries to cope with not just large swings in global commodity prices, but also as an effective instrument for the governments to promote their economic diversification.

This paper offers a template for the GCC central banks to consider the BBC currency system as an alternative to their existing dollar peg regime.

This is the first paper that attempts to provide a formal argument in support of the BBC currency system as an alternative exchange rate arrangement for the GCC countries.

The apparel industry of Bangladesh is rethinking lean manufacturing (LM) deployment because of the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to COVID-19, LM implementation in the apparel industry has become more difficult. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the barriers to implementing LM practices in the apparel industry of Bangladesh in the context of COVID-19 pandemic.

For evaluating the barriers, an integrated framework that combines the Delphi method and fuzzy total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) has been designed. The application of fuzzy TISM has resulted in a structured hierarchical relationship model of the barriers with driving and driven power.

The findings reveal that “lack of synchronization of lean planning with strategic planning”, “lack of proper understanding of lean concept” and “low priority from the top management” are the three top most important barriers of LM implementation in apparel industry.

These findings will help the apparel industry to formulate strategy for implementing the LM practices successfully. The proposed model is expected to contribute to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12); Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8); Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9) via resilient strategies.

This study is one of few initial efforts to investigate LM implementation barriers during the COVID-19 epidemic in a real-world setting.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of Islamic stock returns listed on Jakarta Islamic Index (Indonesia) between 2008 and 2018.

This study uses a quantile bounded autoregressive distributed lag (QBARDL) model to uncover relevant relationships.

This study finds that the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index, gold returns, world oil prices and exchange rates are the determinants of the Indonesia’s Islamic stock returns. However, the relationship is time varying developing intra-/inter-quantile bounded.

Integration of the Islamic stock returns with the real economic indicators changes over time. The findings have important implications for the policymakers, the fund managers and the investors to anticipate consequences when considering the macroeconomic conditions before participating in the Indonesian Islamic stock market.

Using a QBARDL, this study finds that the Islamic stock returns have on net and “time-varying intra-/inter-quantile developing” relationship with its determinants as data quantiles progressed from 25% to 75%.

This study aims to examine the hedge and safe-haven properties of the Sukuk and green bond for the stock markets pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic period.

To test the hedge and safe-haven characteristics of Sukuk and green bonds for stock markets, the study first uses the methodology proposed by Ratner and Chiu (2013). Next, the authors estimate the hedge ratios and hedge effectiveness of using Sukuk and green bonds in a portfolio with stock markets.

Strong safe-haven features of ethical (green) bonds reveal that adding green bonds into the investment portfolios brings considerable diversification avenues for the investors who tend to take fewer risks in periods of economic stress and turbulence. The hedge ratio and hedge effectiveness estimates reveal that green bonds provide sufficient evidence of the hedge effectiveness for various international stocks.

The study has significant implications for faith-based investors, ethical investors, policymakers and regulatory bodies. Religious investors can invest in Sukuk to relish low-risk and interest-free investments, whereas green investors can satisfy their socially responsible motives by investing in these investment streams. Policymakers can direct the businesses to include these diversifiers for portfolio and risk management.

The study provides novel insights in the testing hedge and safe-haven attributes of green bonds and Sukuk while using unique methodologies to identify multiple low-risk investors for investors following the uncertain COVID-19 pandemic.

This research aims to investigate the impact of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) on employee quitting intention (QI) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), considering the moderating effects of workload and organizational training.

The research adopts a cross-sectional approach, involving 151 employees from the apparel manufacturing industry in Bangladesh who participated in the survey. Data analysis is conducted using SmartPLS.

The study reveals that PSC contributes to prolonged employee tenure and fosters positive organizational citizenship behavior. Workload and organizational training play significant moderating roles, influencing the negative and positive effects of PSC on QI and OCB, respectively.

While the PSC model has been studied, there are ample opportunities to enhance and validate theoretical models exploring the moderating impact of job demands and resources on PSC-outcome relationships.

This study serves as an exploration of the influence of working conditions on the outcomes of PSC within the context of the manufacturing industry in a non-Western developing country like Bangladesh. Moreover, it looks into the moderating roles of workload and organizational training to extend the PSC model.

The purpose of studying the impact of crude oil and natural gas prices on the Vietnamese stock market is to understand the relationship between energy prices and the overall performance of the financial markets. As Vietnam is an energy-dependent country, fluctuations in crude oil and natural gas prices can significantly affect various industries, including manufacturing, inflation, transportation, energy production and economic growth. These sectors are often sensitive to changes in energy costs, which can lead to shifts in corporate profitability and investor sentiment. By analyzing how crude oil and natural gas prices influence the Vietnamese stock market, policymakers and investors can provide deeper insights into the economic risks and opportunities related to energy price volatility. This paper can also provide valuable information for decision-making in sectors such as economic forecasting, risk management and investment strategies.

Using monthly data from January 2006 to March 2024, data were collected from the Vietnamese stock market and the OPEC organization for oil prices, while data on natural gas were obtained from the EIA. The data were analyzed using vector error correction (VEC) model, impulse response function, variance decomposition test and asymmetric reactions method; the study tries to ascertain the short-term and long-term dynamic relationships between the shocks of the crude oil price and natural gas prices and their effects on the movement of the stock price. In addition, the GARCH model is applied to measure the volatility of crude oil and natural gas prices.

Crude oil price shocks have a statistically significant impact on most Vietnamese real stock market indices, except for the utility and consumer indices and some energy companies. Conversely, natural gas price shocks do not significantly affect on Vietnamese stock market indices, except for the energy index and some energy companies. Some “important” of both crude oil price and natural gas price shocks tend to depress the stock returns of energy companies. An increase in both crude oil and natural gas volatility can lead to heightened speculation in certain indices, particularly the energy and industrial indices, as well as in some energy companies. This heightened speculation often results in elevated of their stock returns.

This study provides valuable insights into the field of study examining how fluctuations in the prices of oil and gas, particularly during major crisis periods such as global financial crisis, COVID-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War, affect financial markets.

This paper aims to identify various macroeconomic variables that affect the stock market performance of developed and emerging economies. It also investigates the effect of these factors on the stock markets of both economies. The impact of these variables on broad market indices and sectoral indices is investigated and compared too.

The publications for the study were retrieved from databases such as Emerald Insight, EBSCO, ScienceDirect and JSTOR using the keywords “Macroeconomic variables” and “Stock market” or “Stock market performance.” The result demonstrated a growing corpus of scholarly work in the domain of stock market. The study was carried out separately for each macroeconomic indicator. Given a large number of articles under consideration, the authors began by reading the titles and abstracts of all publications to identify those that were relevant. The papers are evaluated in Excel and the articles for review range from 1972 to 2021.

The authors found that gross domestic product (GDP), FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) and FII (Foreign Institutional Investment) have a positive effect on both emerging and developed economies’ stock market while gold price has a negative effect. Interest rates had a negative impact on both economies except for a few developing countries. The relationship with oil prices was positive for oil exporting countries while negative for oil importing countries. Inflation, money supply and GDP are the macroeconomic variables that have the same effect on sectoral indices as they do on broad market indices. The impact was sector-specific for the remaining variables.

This paper gives an overview of relation and effect covering variety of macroeconomic variables and stock market indices. Still, there is a scope for further research to analyze the effect on thematic, strategy and sectoral indices. A longer time horizon with new variables, such as bank deposit growth rate, nonperforming assets of banks, consumer confidence index and investor sentiment, can be studied using high-frequency data. This research may help stakeholders adopt and manage their policies during a crisis or economic slump.

This study will assist investors, researchers and educators in the fields of economics and finance in understanding how macroeconomic factors affect the stock market. Furthermore, this study can guide in portfolio diversification strategy across multiple sectors by examining the impact of macroeconomic factors specific to sectoral indices. This paper provides insight into society and researchers since it integrates a number of macroeconomic variables and their interaction with the stock market. It may also help pension funds and mutual fund firms to hedge their funds and allocate equity portfolios.

With respect to India, this study looked at new macroeconomic variables and sectors. It contrasted the impact of these variables in developed and developing economies. The effect of broad and sectoral stock indexes was also investigated and compared. The authors examined how these variables responded during crisis and economic downturns by using articles from a longer time frame. This research also looked into how changing the frequency of data for the variables altered stock performance. This paper emphasized the need for more research into thematic, strategy and broad market indices, such as small-cap and mid-cap indices.