Islamic banking has thus far mimicked conventional banking with the result that the same problems and outcomes have surfaced, even though it is operating within an interest free framework. This apparent "convergence" has led to disaffection both among consumers of Islamic banking services and policy makers. This paper proposes a risk sharing model for Islamic banks that can potentially pull Islamic banking away from this path dependency. Under the proposal an Islamic bank's assets would be securitized by the issuance of sukuk type instruments that have the same underlying contract and average "duration" as customer financing. Small assets may have to be pooled into tranches of similar maturity before being securitized. Medium and larger assets would have papers issued directly against them. Thus, instead of depositors, an Islamic bank would have thousands of sukuk holders, all of whom share the profits and losses arising from their respective tagged asset. Other than Wadiah based safe custody accounts and current accounts against which the bank holds cash, all other depositors would be "sold" sukuk for the amount, duration and risk level that they prefer. The model has several advantages such as, minimizing systemic risk through risk dissipation and reducing the liquidity mismatch inherent to banking. The securitized papers provide new liquidity instruments and can enhance liquidity within the Islamic finance sector. Where the macro economy is concerned, the proposal enhances system stability by reducing risk concentration within the banking system, substantially widens financial inclusion by way of small denomination sukuk and minimizes the contingent liabilities of governments by avoiding the use of deposit insurance.

This book explains the fundamental principles and functions of an economic, banking and financial operating under Shariah (Islamic law). Numerous tenets of Islamic - from social justice, equality, preservation of property rights, sanctity of contracts and the prohibition of riba (interest) - are discussed with relation to the economic behavior of individuals, society and state.

This research attempts to show that risk sharing, as defined under Islamic finance, makes financial systems antifragile. The recent financial crisis has given rise to discussions around a new term known as antifragility, used for evaluating the long-term stability of a financial system. Antifragility specifies conditions under which systems become resilient to shocks caused by Black Swans. These are highly unpredictable outlier events that have a major negative (or positive) consequence when they occur, with their occurence only being explained retrospectively. According to this concept, the long-term survivability of any system centers exclusively on its antifragile nature, that is, its ability to absorb and actually benefit from Black Swan-type shocks. This research aims to investigate risk sharing Islamic finance, qualitatively (via literature-based research) and quantitatively (via mathematical modeling), as an antifragile system ...

This book provides an introductory, yet comprehensive, treatment of macroeconomic policies and their implementation in an Islamic-designed economic system

The rapid growth in Islamic banking has been accompanied by a considerable amount of research on Islamic banks, however all of the research has been at the bank level. To the best of knowledge, no branch level studies of Islamic banks has been published to date despite the recognition that branch level analysis is more critical than bank level studies (Berger & Humphrey, 1997). An often ...

This paper investigates the effects of sectoral diversification of loans and financing on the risk and the returns of banks in dual-banking systems. We employ the system GMM estimator on a unique panel data of 46 Islamic and 60 conventional banks from six countries over the period 2000-2015. Our findings reveal that sectoral diversification of loans and financing reduces the returns and increases the risk of both Islamic and conventional banks; the impact of sectoral diversification on returns varies across risk levels, with negative effects at low- and no effect at moderate- and high-risk levels; the difference between the impacts on Islamic and conventional banks across risk levels are marginal, and the adverse effects of sectoral diversification were exacerbated during the 2008 financial crisis. Expansion of loan and financing portfolios into new sectors has no impact on bank returns and risk in our sample. The findings may provide valuable implications for all stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers.

In view of the increasing contributions of social capital in financial development, we examine the relevance of social capital in stock market development by applying Bayesian model averaging on 37 variables across 60 countries from 2000 to 2006. The results demonstrate that trust is a robust and positive determinant of stock market depth and liquidity, and that trust is the most relevant component of social capital in market development. Macroeconomic instability in the form of inflationary changes has a dampening effect on trust in the trading of stock. Further, social capital and its components, particularly trust, are more relevant to stock market development in countries with weak rule of law, non-Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (non-OECD) and Organization of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) countries that are generally characterized by lower formal institutional quality. Our results seek to reinforce the relevance of social capital in complementing the much needed reform of stock markets globally.

Women consist of almost half of the world’s population but are disadvantaged in all human development fields. They face barriers in access to valued resources which include education, health, employment, access and ownership of land, banking and finance. Despite recent advances in important aspects of the lives of girls and women, pervasive challenges remain, most often as a result of widespread constraints which often violate women's basic human rights. These differences matter as they directly affect economic outcomes. We therefore make the economic empowerment of women the focus of this study. Research on women’s economic empowerment can be approached in several ways. We look at two very basic and essential aspects; financial inclusion and economic growth. First, we gain insights into the gender gap in the economic empowerment of women through the financial inclusion lens. Second, this study explores women’s economic empowerment and its relationship with economic growth. We address the first issue in two ways. First, at the micro-level by focusing on a data set of 6,000 individuals from the country of Pakistan. The country represents not only a Muslim majority country but also ranks amongst the lowest in women empowerment indicators. Second, we look at the status of financial inclusion of women on a global level by focusing on data of 140 countries and segregate the data from the World Bank and United Nations on women for 42 OIC member countries and 108 developing countries in order to compare. For the second issue we look at the relationship between economic growth and women’s economic empowerment with the data for OIC countries and developing countries from the same sources with additional indicators on Political Risk from ICRG.

The issue of whether banks should diversify or focus their portfolios is theoretically and empirically open to debate. Traditional wisdom in banking argues that diversification can reduce risk and improve retums. The theory of corporate finance, however, contends that diversification increases earnings volatility, write-downs and write-offs, agency problems and inefficiency. While the former suggests that banks should be as diversified as possible, the latter recommends that banks should focus their activities. In an attempt to test these arguments, numerous empirical studies have been conducted - primarily on conventional banks in single-banking systems from developed economies and large emerging market countries. However, there is no consensus thus far as there is evidence supporting both arguments. In other words, no single strategy can be uniformly applied across banks from different countries ...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of risk shifting behavior in bonds and sukuk. The examination is significant, as economists and scholars identify risk shifting as the primary cause of the global financial crisis. Yet, the dangers of this debt-financing feature are largely ignored - one needs to only witness the record growth of global debt even after the global financial crisis. To identify the signs of risk shifting existence in the corporations, this paper compares each corporation's operating risk before and after issuing debt. Operating risk or risk of a firm's activities is measured using the volatility of the operating earnings or coefficient variation of earning before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). Using EBITDA as the variable offers one distinct advantage to using asset volatility as previous research has - EBITDA can be extracted directly from firms' accounting data and is not model-specific.

Before the inception of the Islamic finance industry, there was what could be called a “market failure” in the conventional financial system. There was substantial unmet demand for Shari’a-compliant financial products. Islamic finance grew out of conventional finance to meet this demand. Muslim scholars writing mostly since the 1970s about Islamic finance focused on development of an Islamic finance system; they not only emphasised elimination of riba contracts but urged their replacement with risk-sharing contracts. The practitioners, most of whom had been operating in the conventional finance space, were however interested in developing ways and means of finance that, while Shari’a compatible, would be familiar to and accepted by market players in conventional finance.

Economists and scholars have identified that risk shifting is the root cause of global financial crisis. Unfortunately, the danger of this debt-financing feature has been neglected. One piece of evidence is that global debt continues to grow at record level post crisis. Recognizing the relationship between risk shifting and the global financial crisis, this study encourages the need to curb this feature by defining types of securities that may induce firms to engage in risk shifting ...

While formal institutional quality has been used to explain the finance-growth nexus, the role of social capital has not been fully addressed. The proposition of “better finance, more growth” is important amidst concerns over the erosion of ethics and trust in finance in the aftermath of the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. Using threshold estimation technique, this study examines whether the growth effect of stock market development differs according to the distinct levels of ethical behavior and trustworthiness in a cross-section of 73 jurisdictions during the post-crisis period. The results demonstrate that the impact of stock market liquidity on gross domestic product (GDP) and total factor productivity (TFP) growth is positive and significant only where there is high level of ethical behavior in firms. Similar effect is discerned in the case of strong trustworthiness and confidence. However, there is mixed evidence when formal institutional quality in the form of regulation and supervision of securities exchanges is considered. In terms of policy implications, this study upholds the “better finance, more growth” proposition and contributes to the identification of thresholds above which ethical behavior and trustworthiness can influence positively the relations between stock market development and macroeconomic performance.

This dissertation begins the discussion by referring to Verse 278 of Surat al-Baqarah to distinguish it from the ribawi system. Allah swt said: "Allah has permitted al-bay' and prohibited al-riba." The findings suggest that al-bay' in this verse refers to a system. Al-bay' as a mutual exchange in which one bundle of property rights is exchanged for another allows both parties to share production and transportation. Al-bay' or exchange has surrounding rules that construct the system. The outcome of this system can claim that it is through its rules which govern just exchange, distribution ...

Income inequality is a serious problem confronting not only the developed world but also developing countries. Recently, financialization has been one of the culprits identified in literature as one of the cause of income inequality. This book offers the only detailed presentation of the how financialization aided the spread of income inequality in Organization of Islamic Cooperation, OIC countries. Finance has taking a center stage in the affairs of most developing economies, surpassing the real sector of the economy. The result is the creation of an indebted society in which people are comfortable with financing their financial needs through credit. This creates a debt laden society that is trapped in the cycle of debt. This book represents a comprehensive and indispensable source for students, practitioners and the general public at large. It presents data which shows the buildup of debt and the rising income inequality in Muslim countries. It includes discussion of the rise in rentier income, financialization of everyday life, decline in physical capital accumulation and deregulation of the financial sector. The book therefore, proffers solutions on how Muslim countries can come out of the present economic problem facing them. The promotion and adoption of Islamic principles, which promotes risk sharing based contracts as against debt based transaction is the way to go. When financial contracts are based on the principles of risk sharing, any gains from economic activities get to be shared equitably. Hence, not only capital owners get to enjoy the benefit from the income derived from investments, but rather, all parties that partake in the contract. Distinguished by its clarity and readability as it is written in a very easy to understand language, it is an important reference work for any concerned individual interested on the recent causes of income inequality in Muslim World.

Throughout the world, the income gap between the rich and the poor has continued to widen. It has been reported that income inequality is spiraling out of control and this is a dangerous trend that pose significant threat to the global sustainability. Several factors have contributed to this widening income gap, among which is financialization of the economy (much faster growth of the financial sector than in the real sector of the economy through rapid growth of debt and large increases in financial sector profits). The aim of the study is to examine the prevalence of income inequality in Organization for Islamic Countries, (OIC) countries and examine how it differs from Organization for Economic Corporations and Development (OECD) countries. In this study, Generalize Method of Moments (GMM) was used in the data analysis. The study employs two sets of financialization data. The first financialization indicators are: Bank profit (BPROF), market capitalization of listed firms (MCAP), stock value traded (STD) and financialization aggregate (FIN_AGG). While the second indicators are: Rate of growth of finance relative to real GDP (RFING), rate of growth of debt relative to Gross domestic product (GDP) (RDEBT). Private sector credit (PCR) and financialization aggregate (FIN_AGG). For a robust test, the study employs securities under banks asset (SEC). Using overall sample (data from both countries OIC and OECD), the result of the study confirms financialization is one of the major causes of income inequality in the studied countries. Also, the findings revealed that income inequality is higher in OIC than in OECD countries. Using the first financialization dataset, the study reveals a more detrimental effect of financialization on inequality in the overall sample than in OIC countries.

Wealth inequality has been a core field of research in economics in the post-Global Financial Crisis era since it is an important driver of economic/financial crises and inhibits long-term growth. Compelling evidence indicates that wealth inequality has been increasing over and above income inequality but traditional theories of inequality lack in explaining the causes of such an increase in wealth inequality. This study shows that interest-based debt contracts may be the underlying cause of wealth inequality. The study discusses that asset-based redistribution, which targets the re-distribution of wealth through re-designation of financial contracts, has pronounced advantages over and above income-based re-distribution policies. The study also underlines that risksharing mechanisms are the building blocks of asset -based re-distribution policies. Stock-flow consistent modeling approach (SFCA) allows measuring comparative benefits of implementing risk-sharing asset-based redistribution policies compared to the base scenario of debt-based financialized economy. In this regard, a large SFCA macroeconomic model is constructed in order to measure comparative advantages of asset-based redistribution tools above that income-based redistribution tools. The results accentuate that an interest rate and debt-based economy goes to absolute inequality without policy interruption. The subsequent simulation gauge distributional effects of different set of fiscal policies. As per the simulation results, asset-based risk-sharing policies are much effective compared to income-based redistribution policies in taming the wealth inequality. Among others, GDP-linked sukuk and zakah should be taken seriously as important asset-based redistribution policy alternatives.

Muslim developing countries like many of their conventional counterparts suffer serious indebtedness. Amongst the 57 OIC countries, only the six Gulf cooperation Council countries have positive fiscal balances. The other 51 OIC nations have government budget deficits. Nineteen of these 51 countries are classified by the World Bank/IMF as HIPC (heavily indebted poor country). That government expenditure exceeds government revenues is a fairly common characteristic of developing economics. It is typically the result of the need to fund development. As matters now stand, there are two key problems with this. First, the budget shortfall is typically met by way of interest-based borrowing. Second, as domestic capital accumulation is usually insufficient, governments have to resort to borrowing in foreign currency.

The breakdown of trust and cooperation as well as the failure of institutions to govern effectively can be attributed as the critical causes of the global financial meltdown. This research will extend the behavioural investigation into testing the level of adherence towards these rules of behaviour in the members of society - specifically separated into two groups, Muslims and non-Muslims. This research will analyze the comparative behaviours of Muslims and non-Muslims using selected games (from the body of published work on behavioural and experimental games). The experimental games will be carried out on test subjects in Singapore as well as in Malaysia from diverse backgrounds ...

There has been considerable research providing evidence of a negative link between natural resource abundance and economic growth leading to the coining of the term 'resource curse' (Yuxiang & Chen, 2009; Anshasy & Katsaiti, 2011). The member states of the Islamic Cooperation Countries (OIC) comprise 57 countries, including those that are resource rich. Given that oil exports revenue has been the main resource contributor, it is expected that continuous increase in fuel prices over the past decade would have positioned the OIC countries at the forefront of economic performance and growth. This research undertakes a review on ten of the Islamic Cooperation Countries (OIC) (‘the OIC Countries’) and assesses whether sustainable growth in economic performance is demonstrated from the discovery of their tradable resources. On this premise, the study evaluates whether the resource curse symptom exists and determines whether natural resource abundance in the OIC countries is a curse or a blessing. Using the Fixed Effect method, the analysis firstly explores whether there is negative relation between oil resources or rent and real GDP to prove the presence of a resource curse. The research also evaluates potential mechanism that account for the resource curse such as quality of institutions and financial development. The study ultimately attempts to provide policy recommendations on how the OIC countries could benefit more from their resource wealth by adopting welfare enhancing reforms of their policies and institutions according to the framework envisioned by the Qur’an.

Islamic finance is a fairly young industry. It is only 30 years old. When I first began looking into the industry back in the late 1970s, the asset size was about US$50 million. The industry has now grown to reach US$1 trillion. This growth is a good sign; however, in order to progress further the industry and policy makers need to consider the lessons of the most recent financial crisis and explore the path that would take the industry forward without experiencing similar crises.