A comparison of Islamic and conventional insurance demand: Worldwide evidence during the Global Financial Crisis

Waheed Akhter, Vasileios Pappas and Saad Ullah Khan

Research in International Business and Finance, 2017, vol. 42, issue C, 1401-1412

Abstract: In this paper we compare the Islamic insurance industry (Takaful) to the conventional insurance across 14 countries over the 2005–2014 period. Our methodology relies on panel regressions and accounts for the periods during and post the global financial crisis (GFC). Specifically, we investigate: i) the difference in the insurance demand dynamics of the two insurance types; ii) if Islamic insurance demand has been boosted in the period that followed the crisis. To allow for cross-country heterogeneities we form sub-samples of high/low insurance regions and ASEAN/Middle East. We find Islamic and conventional insurance demand to be negatively affected by GDP/capita, albeit the Islamic showing a greater resilience during crisis. A negative link between conventional insurance and saving rate shows that conventional saving products work as substitutes to conventional insurance. Higher average income is positively (negatively) related to Islamic insurance demand in the Middle East (ASEAN), a finding plausibly related to the different practices relating to Islamic finance in the two regions.

Keywords: Islamic insurance (Takaful); Global Financial Crisis; ASEAN; Middle East; Demographics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531916304871
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:42:y:2017:i:c:p:1401-1412

DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2017.07.079

Access Statistics for this article

Research in International Business and Finance is currently edited by T. Lagoarde Segot

More articles in Research in International Business and Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().