Political transition and bank performance: How important was the Arab Spring?

Employs bank-level data for 2000-2012 to examine the impact of Arab Spring on MENA banks. * The impact of the Arab Spring is to lower profitability and raise bank risk. * There appears to be no differential effect of the political conflict on the performance and stability of Islamic banks. * There appears to be limited evidence of any contemporaneous impact of the Arab Spring on banks. * Although the Arab Spring did not affect loan behavior, lending rates increased. Using data for 2000-2012, the article utilizes the natural experiment of the Arab Spring to examine its impact on the risk and re... Mehr ...