Firm Growth, Finance and Economic Freedom: Panel Data Study

This paper aims to examine empirically the influence of finance (sources of financing) and economic freedom upon the growth of syariah compliance firms’ and conventional firms’, in which listed in Bursa Malaysia for the period of 2000-2010. A static panel data technique namely a fixed effect model is used to estimate the determinants of firms’ growth. The findings revealed that the internal and external financing has a positive effects and statistically significance in influencing the firms’ growth. The growth of syariah compliance firms’ are more sensitive to internal finance than external finance, whereas, the growth of conventional firms’ are more sensitive to external finance than internal finance. On the other hand, the growth of syariah compliance firms’ are negatively affected by economic freedom, whereas, the growth of conventional firms’ are positively influenced by economic freedom.