Iranian Journal of Finance

This research aims to provide a detailed and comprehensive analysis of trends and developments in scientometrics and bibliometrics in the sukuk market in order to present global findings and outline new perspectives and practical strategies for the improvement and development of Iran's capital market in this area. In this study, a scientometric analysis of the sukuk domain was conducted on 391 selected documents, using a scientific search method in the Web of Science database, spanning from 2010 to 2023. For this purpose, Biblioshiny, a web-based application using the R language, which includes bibliometric interpolation, was utilized. Prominent journals, authors, countries, papers, and topics were identified through this software workflow, and citation analysis, co-citation, and social network analyses were performed. In the Iran section, papers and books on sukuk were extracted and examined. The findings indicate that the field of sukuk has emerged as a developed domain over time. The bibliometric and scientometric analysis of sukuk in the capital market clarifies the field's conceptual framework and delves into the existing intellectual and social structural patterns. This analysis illustrates the alignment of global experiences with current developments in the sukuk market and emphasizes the importance of suggestions for improving and developing Iran's capital market. Moreover, the current research examines the intellectual and social structures associated with the field and provides insights into its conceptual framework. This research, through the bibliometric and scientometric analysis of the sukuk market, elucidates the developments and intellectual and social patterns in this field and effectively contributes to the development of knowledge and improvement of Iran's capital market by offering suggestions based on global experiences.

As a key tool in implementing monetary policy and government financing, government bonds play an essential role in financial markets. By means of Islamic financial innovations in the Islamic capital market, the instrument of Islamic treasury bill is published and tradable in the over-the-counter market. Islamic treasury bills have many risks in terms of execution, including the ease of trading and liquidity in the secondary market. Therefore, this research aims to examine some microstructural elements of government bonds using a vector autoregressive model. In this article, the effect of trading volume on bid-ask spread of orders has been investigated. To survey the impact of these variables, the vector autoregressive (VAR) model has been used on intraday data of 17 symbols of Islamic treasury bills in the over-the-counter market, which had the most trading days from 2021 to September 2023. According to the studies, there is a significant relationship between the trading volume and bid-ask spread only in Islamic treasury bills with long-term maturity. Therefore, the effect of the bid-ask spread of orders in different periods is greater than the trading volume, especially in longer-term Islamic treasury bills. Hence, in this research, by analyzing the impulse response function, if there is a shock on the variables, the effect of the trading volume's shock remains for several periods and affects unremarkably the bid-ask spread of orders in most of the short-term and long-term Islamic treasury bills, while effects of the bid-ask spread shocks during initial periods for long-term and short-term Islamic treasury bills is excellent, but decrease sharply during the following periods. These results help traders pay attention and reduce the risk of trading in the over-the-counter market, specifically the long-term treasury bills.

Investment fund managers have been trying to provide more attractiveness for investors by earning higher yields and generating liquidity. The investment rate of return of a mutual fund is obtained from the difference between the issuance and redemption of Net Asset Values (NAVs) per investment unit. However, the Exchange Traded Funds'(ETFs') yield should be calculated differently, and investors must consider the changes in market prices (Not only the NAVs), which are not usually announced through the Ads, so they disregard the investors. Investment fund managers believe that the attractiveness of the rate of return, even to a small extent, leads to over-welcoming of the investors and a faster growth of the funds' size. According to the information available in recent years, investors have shown more interest in fixed-income investment funds, and the growth of ETFs has been significant compared to the growth of total funds, so it can be assumed that investors are more interested in ETFs. Thus, in this research, we will identify factors affecting the development of ETFs, especially fixed-income ones. To fulfill our purpose, we examined all active fixed-income investment funds that are traded in the Tehran Stock Exchange and the Iran Farabourse from March 2021 to September 2023, including 25 ETFs. We analyzed our panel data through ordinary least squares. Analyzing the effective rate of returns of 25 Fixed Income ETFs, which have been active from March 2021 to September 2023, our results showed that ETFs development is significantly related to the fund size, daily price volatility, and liquidity. Despite our expectations, rate of return, fund age, and price adjustment do not have a significant effect on the development of investment funds. The result showed that a higher rate of return did not have a significant effect on the attractiveness and acceptance of investors, but the liquidity of investment units positively affects the development of fixed-income ETFs. We also found that the daily volatility of the final price inversely impacted the fund's size. This is consistent with investors' low risk-taking spirit in fixed-income funds and emphasizes their preference to avoid liquidity risk and price volatility risk.

Islamic principles are heralding a variety of implications for business and accounting. Reflecting upon Islamic practices, this study engages with the notion of ESG conduct and its disclosure in accounting reports. While drawing from key Islamic texts and relevant prior literature, the present research elaborates and discusses fundamental Islamic principles of relevance and delineates what they suggest for ESG reporting. A grounded theory method was used for data collection. Online in-depth semi-structured interviews were deployed to 16 Islamic "finance and accounting specialists." Primary data analysis was done with MAXQDA. In the next step, the three-step encoding method was accomplished. The survey revealed 53 reporting implementation codes in three dimensions comprising environmental, social, and corporate governance. In addition, a comparative view of corporate governance under Islamic and non-Islamic economic schools was illustrated. The execution of ESG accounting practices might be beneficial in overcoming the problem of traditional accounting, which fails to incorporate environmental, social, and ethical hidden costs. The conclusion discusses the perspective of the Islamic view in ESG reporting by incorporating the concept of Tawhid, which provides holistic guidance based on Islamic beliefs, values, and concepts. The obtained framework contributes to Islamic accounting at the intersection of sustainable strategies.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are vital for economic development, growth in production, and employment expansion. One of their key challenges is the financing gap. Therefore, offering alternative financing solutions can aid in their growth and development. This study aims to propose an efficient way to finance SMEs through the issuance of sukuk. At first, we identified challenges in financing SMEs by interviewing experts. Then based on challenges we propose two assumptions in designing a Sukuk model for financing SMEs and based on them, we designed 7 models. We use an intermediary in all models and we propose to finance a portfolio of SMEs instead of financing a single SME and, also we use contracts that originator could use them for any purpose. These models were based on Tawaruq, Ijarah, Musharaka, Manfaat, Salam, Wakalah and Bay' al-dayn. Then we ranked models using the TOPSIS method based on 6 criteria, and the wakalah sukuk model was chosen for SME financing from the capital market. Subsequently, a model based on wakalah sukuk was developed, addressing aspects such as parties involved in Wakalah Sukuk for financing SMEs, profit management in SME Wakalah Sukuk, wakil's fee, construction of SME’s portfolio by Wakil, and reporting and monitoring the performance of the originator.