Relative performance of religious and ethical investment funds

Esther Castro earned her PhD in Financial Economics from the University of New Orleans. She is now an Assistant Professor of Finance in the Marilyn Davies College of Business at the University of Houston Downtown.

M. Kabir Hassan is Professor of Finance in the Department of Economics and Finance in the University of New Orleans. He currently holds two endowed Chairs-Hibernia Professor of Economics and Finance and Bank One Professor in Business- in the University of New Orleans. Professor Hassan is the winner of the 2016 IDB Prize in Islamic Banking and Finance. He received his BA in Economics and Mathematics from Gustavus Adolphus College, Minnesota, USA, and MA in Economics and PhD in Finance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, respectively. He is a leading authority on empirical Islamic finance scholarship and published Islamic finance papers in top academic journals. He has done consulting work for the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, African Development Bank, Transparency International-Bangladesh (TIB), Islamic Development Bank, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Government of Turkey and many private organizations. He has over 300 papers published in refereed academic journals. He is the Editor International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management (Scopus and SSCI). He has guest edited special Issues of Islamic finance for several leading academic journals. He has published several books on Islamic finance, law and entrepreneurship by Edward Elgar, John Wiley, Palgrave-MacMillan, Routledge, Pearson and Emerald publishing company.

Dr Jose Francisco Rubio obtained his bachelor’s in business management in Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral in Guayaquil, Ecuador. After earning a PhD degree from the University of New Orleans in 2014, he joined the faculty at Central Connecticut State University where he taught courses in general finance and in asset pricing at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Rubio has published several papers in refereed academic journals. His main areas of research are in asset pricing, corporate finance and international finance. Dr. Rubio is now an Associate Professor of Finance at Holy Cross University, New Orleans.

Zairihan Abdul Halim is a Senior Lecturer at the Economics Department of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Economics from Universiti Utara Malaysia and University of Malaya, Malaysia, respectively, and a PhD in Finance from Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Her main research interests include Islamic Banking and Finance, Corporate Finance and Monetary Economics. Her research papers have been published in the top refereed academic journals such as the Journal of Corporate Finance and Pacific-Basin Finance Journal. She recently received the Best Paper Award (Islamic Finance category) by the Pacific-Basin Finance Journal.