Constructing fragility indices for islamic banks: Definition impact on the predictive power of an early warning system

This study examines the Early Warning Systems (EWSs) based on banking sector fragility indices (BSFIs) for Islamic banks. To this aim, we construct various BSFIs for Islamic banks and detect EWS models which will produce substantial predictive power results for Islamic banking crises utilizing data from 81 banks in 12 countries over a recent time period 2008-2018. We provide solid BSFI definitions for Islamic banks by discovering the significant risk factors and their proxies to improve the predictive performance of the EWS models. We examine the impact of BSFI definitions on the predictive power of EWS models through constructing various indices. The definitions of BSFIs differ both in terms the risk factors that Islamic banks are exposed to and, the proxies to measure those risk factors. Our results suggest that different BSFI definitions identify different indicators of Islamic banking crises. The predictive power of an Early Warning System (EWS) for Islamic banks is highly sensitive to the definition of BSFIs.