The Bruneian Government has set an ambitious target to achieve a top 10 ranking on the UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) by 2035. To achieve its objective (described in a national strategy document called the Wawasan 2035), Brunei’s economy needs to grow by 6%-7%. Is setting an HDI target...

How far do China’s property prices need to drop in order to send the country into a recession? What does this question tell us about the way Bubble Economies work? In this paper, we develop a theory of Bubble Economics – non-linear and often “systemic” (in the mathematical sense of the...

We use novel and unique data to study the effect of price changes in the market for luxury and middle class homes. We find that luxury home sales respond less to price changes than the middle-class home sales; in the market for luxury homes, past prices affect current prices; luxury home prices...

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of microfinance institutions in The MENA region over the period 2006-2009. Following Simar and Wilson (1998, 2000) we use a DEA-Bootstrapping methodology to drift appropriate measures of DEA efficiency scores. The estimated results show...

For emerging market regulators, shadow banking represents an activity which they must control. For businessmen in economies like Russia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, shadow banking represents an important business opportunity. By extending credit to risky (but promising) activities...

The wealth management industry has expanded greatly in the Middle East -- following the fortunes of wealth itself. How can wealth managers identify and grow their portfolios in this region? What policies can they push for in order to build wealth management and private banking services? What...

Developments in information technology are fundamentally changing many traditional business models. Progress in the IT area is bringing about one change in particular: it is reducing search costs and allowing buyers and sellers of products and services to find each other directly on web-based...

The banks are known as the backbones of any economy. The banks link the saving surplus units with deficit units thereby providing investment and capital formation opportunities to both the units. In the recent times of financial shrinkages and up & down, the banking sector has witnessed various...

We review the empirical evidence on the impact of microcredit on poverty in Bangladesh. Drawing on evidence from seven empirical studies with 306 estimates, we examine the impact of microcredit on three proxies of poverty – income, assets and consumption/expenditure. After addressing issues of...

This study examines the implications of CEO power on the board structure of banks in the Ghanaian banking industry. Using a unique hand-collected dataset in respect of 21 commercial banks in Ghana for the 2009 – 2017 periods, the results show that CEO power underscores the absence or lack of...