In recent years there has been substantial theoretical and empirical work on the role that financial markets play in fostering economic growth and development. This paper provides a selective review of the literature, as well as new empirical evidence on the relationship between financial...

There is now a substantial theoretical literature arguing that inflation impedes financial deepening. Furthermore, it has been hypothesized that the relationship is a nonlinear one, in that there is a threshold level of inflation below which inflation has a positive effect on financial depth,...

The main characteristics of an Islamic financial system are described relying on recent writings on the subject and on the actual practice of Islamic banking. A theoretical model of an Islamic economic system is developed by generalizing the standard IS-LM model in order to study the effects of...