International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues ISSN: 2146-4138 available at http: www.econjournals.com International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 2021, 11(1), 157-166. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues | Vol 11 • Issue 1 • 2021 157 Bootstrap DEA Effciencies of the GCC Islamic Banks: Sources and Comparison During 2014-2016 Abdus Samad* Department of Finance and Economics, Utah Valley University 800 W University PKWY Orem, UT 84058, USA. *Email: abdus.samad@uvu.edu Received: 20 June 2020 Accepted: 17 November 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijef.10127 ABSTRACT This paper, frst, obtained three categories of effciencies, overall bias-corrected technical effciency (OTEBC), bias-corrected pure technical effciency (PTEBC) and bias-corrected scale effciency (SE) of the Islamic banks of the Gulf Cooperating Countries (GCC) during 2014-2016 using the Simar and Wilson (1998) Bootstrap data envelopment analysis (DEA). Second, decomposing the overall bias-corrected technical effciency (OTEBC) the paper found the bias-corrected pure technical effciency (PTEBC) and the bias-corrected scale effciency (SE) were 91% and 59.8% respectively and thus PTEBC dominated the OTBBC (82.4%) and the SE (59.8%) of the GCC Islamic banks. Third, the paper found the sources of the ineffciency of the Islamic banks of the GCC was the DRS. Except the Islamic banks of Qatar, banks of the GCC countries were ineffcient either because they operated under the IRS or DRS. DRS was the major source of ineffciency. Qatar Islamic banks demonstrated the highest level of effciency in all three effciency among GCC. The paper provides suggestions for future study. Keywords: GCC Islamic Banks, Technical effciency, Bootstrap DEA, Bias-corrected Technical Effciency JEL Classifcations: C14, G21, G22 1. INTRODUCTION GCC, Gulf Cooperating Countries, consists of Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates (UAE). They are all oil rich countries. Among GCC, the fnancial service sector, bank in particular, is a dominant sector and is an important source of income for UAE and Bahrain. The fnancial industry is one of the largest non-oil contributors of Bahrain’s real GDP. It contributes about 17.6 of GDP in 2018. One of the main benefciaries of the regional boom driven by demand for oil is Bahrain’s banking and fnancial services sector, particularly Islamic banking. The UAE domestic market banks reported Dh2.84trn ($773bn) in assets at the end of the third quarter of 2018, making the UAE’s banking sector the largest in the GCC region, according to the Central Bank of the UAE (CBU). Islamic banks account for about 20.4% of overall assets as of the third quarter of 2018. Dubai Islamic Bank, founded in 1975, was seen as the frst sharia- compliant lender of its kind, marking the beginning of the broader Islamic fnance segment. In the GCC region, Kuwait is home to one of the oldest banking industries. The Emir of Kuwait issued a 30-year concession to a group of British investors to set up the nation’s frst bank in 1941. Today Kuwait has 11 domestic and 11 foreign banks and Kuwait’s banking sector constitutes one of the oldest and one of the most developed fnancial industries in the Gulf region. Oman’s banking sector faced considerable challenges over recent years due to the struggling global economy and a decline in oil prices. Although conventional banks dominate Oman’s banking sector, nonetheless, there is a vibrant Islamic banking operating This Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License