The study tests the Fama and French three-factor model by using the newly created Islamic equity style indices. Based on a dataset from May 2006 to April 2011, the three-factor model is tested based on returns of Islamic unit trust funds using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) methodology. The sample period is also divided between periods before and after the Global Financial Crisis in August 2008 to test for robustness, and the Bai and Perron (2003) multiple structural break test was used to determine the structural break in the series. The analysis shows that the Fama and French model is valid for Islamic unit trust funds before and after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The result further indicates the reversal of size effect. As for trading strategies, value funds outperform growth funds by annualized 3.13 percent for the full period. During pre-crisis period, value funds perform better than growth funds while in post-crisis, size factor yields better return than other strategies. As policy suggestion, fund managers need to be aware of the reversal of size effect, and they need to ensure a more transparent stock selection process so that investors can make an informed decision in their asset allocation.

Banks play a crucial role in bringing stability and economic development through their expected contribution in proper financial resource mobilisation across the economy. Despite the importance, there is little focus in recent literature which provided the empirical evidence how the global financial crisis affect the bank efficiency in Bangladesh. Thus, this paper aims to examine the effect of the global financial crisis and other factors on the efficiency of Bangladesh commercial banks. By employing the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method, we computed the technical efficiency of individual banks operating in the Bangladesh banking sector during 2000 to 2013. The empirical findings indicate that the Bangladesh banking sector has exhibited the highest efficiency level during 2001, while efficiency seems to be at the lowest level during 2010. The study finds that crisis along with bank size, capital adequacy ratio, return on average equity and real interest rate have a significant effect on bank efficiency in Bangladesh. In order to keep the sound financial development of Bangladesh, banks operating in the Bangladesh banking sector have to consider all the potential technologies which could improve their profit efficiency levels, since the main motive of banks is to maximise shareholders’ value or wealth through profit maximisation.