The growth literature has had problems explaining the "sub-Saharan African growth dummy" in cross-country regressions. Instead of taking the usual approach of focusing on long-run growth and assuming that sub-Saharan countries have homogenous parameters in growth regressions, we concentrate our...

The rapid growth of Islamic banking has attracted much attention lately in the economic literature. At the same time, a mature body of the literature has shown that financial development is broadly conducive to economic growth, which raises the question as to whether a similar conclusion holds...

The rapid growth of Islamic banking has attracted much attention lately in the economic literature. At the same time, a mature body of the literature has shown that financial development is broadly conducive to economic growth, which raises the question as to whether a similar conclusion holds...

In this paper we assess the equilibrium value of the Mauritian rupee in 2006-7 and over the medium run using two structural models. First, we derive a current account-based measure of the exchange rate equilibrium using the macroeconomic balance approach. Second, we estimate a reduced-form...

We investigate the determinants of the pattern of Islamic bank expansion around the world using country-level data for 1992-2006. The analysis illustrates that income per capita, share of Muslims in the population, and economic integration with Middle Eastern countries are linked to the...

We assess econometrically the impact of asset shortages on economic growth, asset bubbles, the probability of a crisis, and the current account for a group of 41 emerging markets (EMs) for 1995--2008. The econometric estimations confirm that asset shortages pose a serious danger to EMs in terms...