Internet resources, extended media coverage and international organizations' reports recently witness the increasing interest of western banks in new models of finance, particularly Islamic finance and microfinance. This new trend is not only channeled through the frame of corporate social...

This paper explores the significance of Islamic banking in Malaysia for stability in the country's economy as a whole. Neither conventional theory nor Islamic economics puts forward a systematic explanation of financial intermediation; consequently, neither is capable of identifying...

We use a classic Merton credit risk framework to argue that Islamic Banking Institutions (IBIs) face less incentive to take on risks than Conventional Banking Institutions (CBI). IBIs have less incentive for risk shifting both in and outside of distress situations. We test and confirm this...

In Against the gods: the remarkable story of risk (1996), Peter L. Bernstein illustrates how the mastery of risk has driven modern Western society into converting 'the future from an enemy into an opportunity'. Far from being an antagonist, as the unpredictable whim of gods or mysterious fate,...

The paper analyses Islamic finance from the central bank and supervisory authority's perspective, focusing on the European and Italian context. It depicts a rapidly expanding sector, with recent annual growth rates of between 10 and 15 percent and a geographical presence that now reaches several...

The theoretical foundation of Islamic economics and finance is based on, among other things, Homo Islamicus or Islamic Man. Islamic economics and finance theoreticians contrast Homo Islamicus with Homo economicus or the Economic Man. This paper examines whether or not Homo Islamicus is...

Abstract: This study measures the ethical identity of Islamic banks in Bangladesh over the period 2001 to 2006. An index of ethical identity, following Haniffa and Hudaib (2007), is constructed by drawing information revealed in the annual reports of the banks. The index is composed of eight...

We compare default rates on conventional and Islamic loans using a comprehensive monthly dataset from Pakistan that follows more than 150,000 loans over the period 2006:04 to 2008:12. We find robust evidence that the default rate on Islamic loans is less than half the default rate on...

We study the relationship between opacity and external funding decisions when different types of sukuk and conventional financial instruments are available. For this purpose, we construct an opacity index for 107 Malaysian firms issuing sukuk and conventional financial instruments during...