As the US current account deficit has expanded to a record level of $811 billion in 2006, debate about the deficit’s causes and consequences has also grown. Is the deficit a product of American profligacy or a ‘glut of savings’ in the rest of the world? Is it a serious problem or...

This volume brings together some of the most important articles on the topic of financial intermediaries. Financial Intermediaries puts recent developments into an appropriate historical setting, with seminal works by Edgeworth, Arrow, Gurley, Shaw, Baumol, Tobin and Stigler combined with more...

Banking, foreign exchange, bonds, equities and insurance services are now provided through an increasingly global marketplace. In financial services, as in other activities, globalization can be seen as a process opening up national economies and markets, widening the extent and form of...

This path-breaking book considers the recent trend for governments to look increasingly to private sector finance, provided by private enterprises constructing and managing public infrastructure facilities in partnership with government bodies.

Islamic finance refers to methods of undertaking banking and financial transactions that are in conformity with the precepts of Islam. As such, the system offers a challenge to conventional Western ways of thinking about financing. This indispensable set of papers brings together the most...

The prohibition of interest is the feature of Islamic banking which most distinctly sets it apart from conventional banking. To Western eyes, this seems a strange restriction, but Christian countries themselves maintained such a ban for 1,400 years. Islamic Banking asks why Islam has been able...