Determinants of profitability measured by ROAE.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature by investigating the determinants of the profitability of Islamic and conventional banks in the Middle East region and revealing the most important factors for these two types of banks. Few papers have studied the performance of Islamic banks and compared their performance with conventional banks. The results from these limited research papers are also various, mainly because the sample sizes are small, or they have analysed data only from one country. Our research used a fixed effect panel data analysis on a sample of 270 banks (111 Islamic and 159 conventional banks) from 12 Middle East countries. We used an unbalanced annual panel of data covering the period 2012–2020. The results show that bank size, equity to assets, annual GDP growth, and annual average oil price have a significant positive effect on Islamic banks’ profitability, while non-performing loans to total gross loans and cost of running operations to operating income have a significant negative effect on both bank types. The results also show that non-performing loans to total gross loans and annual GDP growth contribute more to conventional banks profitability, while oil price contributes only to Islamic banks performance. Inflation and net loans to total assets have no effect on bank profitability for either Islamic or conventional banks. Furthermore, we also found that the Islamic banking industry had a more competitive structure. Our findings have important implications for managers, policy makers, investors and other stakeholders. They can help them to make decisions regarding investments, plans, budgeting, evaluation and the management of business operations.

本研究旨在探讨中东地区伊斯兰银行与传统银行的盈利能力决定因素，并揭示两类银行各自的核心影响因子，以期为现有相关学术文献补充研究成果。目前鲜有文献针对伊斯兰银行的经营绩效展开研究，并将其与传统银行进行对比分析。此类有限研究所得结论亦存在分歧，究其原因主要在于样本规模偏小，或仅针对单一国家的数据开展分析。本研究采用固定效应面板数据分析方法，对来自中东12个国家的270家银行（含111家伊斯兰银行、159家传统银行）的样本数据进行了实证分析。本研究使用了覆盖2012-2020年的非平衡年度面板数据集。研究结果显示：银行规模、股权资产比、年度GDP增长率以及年度平均油价对伊斯兰银行的盈利能力具有显著正向影响；而不良贷款占总贷款总额比例与运营成本占营业总收入比例则对两类银行的盈利能力均存在显著负向影响。研究同时发现，不良贷款占总贷款总额比例与年度GDP增长率对传统银行盈利能力的影响更为突出，而油价仅会对伊斯兰银行的经营绩效产生影响。通货膨胀率与净贷款占总资产比例对两类银行的盈利能力均无显著影响。此外，本研究还发现伊斯兰银行业的市场结构更具竞争性。本研究结论对银行管理者、政策制定者、投资者及其他利益相关者具有重要的实践启示，可辅助其开展投资规划、预算编制、绩效评估以及业务运营管理等相关决策。