One approach to oil markets is to treat oil as an asset, besides its role as a commodity. Speculative and nonspeculative activity by investors in the derivatives markets could be responsible for a sizable increase in oil prices. This paper recognizes both the consumption and investment aspects...

Option prices provide valuable information on market expectations. This paper attempts to extract market expectations, as conveyed by an implied risk-neutral probability distribution, from option prices for the dollar-euro exchange rate. Returns' volatilities are inferred from observed and...

Conventional finance has long been plagued by crises that cause economic dislocations and impede sustained economic growth, with banks and non-bank financial institutions requiring periodic bailouts. Numerous developing countries have been unable to mobilise domestic and foreign financial...

Following record low interest rates and a depreciating US dollar, crude oil prices came under increasing pressure during the period 2003M5-2007M10. Oil price process parameters changed dramatically toward consistently rising prices. Short-term forecasting implied the persistence of the observed...

n an Islamic economy, the financial sector functions to support the real sector. There are no interest rate based debt instruments. Financial assets are based on risk and return sharing and are contingent claims. Real as well as monetary forces determine the rate of return. As in traditional...

The current view defines financial crisis as the collapse of the financial asset market. It is said to be triggered when asset markets no longer validate expectations of continuously rising returns on financial assets. Invariably, financial crises have involved the banking systems. Signs of the...

In this paper, the foundational rules governing human, economic and financial development in Islam, as understood from the Quran and from the life and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), are summarized. These rules pave the path to development as the basis of institutional structure,...

Evidence has been mounting that the interest-based debt financing regime is under increasing distress. Evidence also suggests that the financial crises, whatever title they carried - exchange rate crisis or banking crisis – have been debt crises in essence. At present, data suggest that the...

Expansionary monetary policy in key industrial countries and a rapidly depreciating US dollar sent commodity prices soaring at unprecedented rates during 2003–2007. In contrast, consumer price indices in major OECD countries, a leading indicator for monetary policy, showed almost no...