Islamic finance has come of age. Islamic banking and finance have been growing at a very fast rate, despite apparent serious setbacks (such as interruption of payments in Abu Dhabi in 2009, the Great Recession in Western countries between 2008 and 2010, and the recent turmoil in Middle Eastern...

Between 1983 and 1986, Malaysia embarked on a structural adjustment program to control its fiscal and balance of payments deficits. In reaction to the shock of sharply declining commodity prices, the Malaysian government drastically cut back on public spending and allowed the exchange rate to...

This paper compares central banking in the era of Bagehot's Rule (1873) and the current era of quantitative easing (QE) and zero (or near-zero) interest rate policy (ZIRP) to suggest that our analytical frameworks need updating. It also proposes some rules for emerging-market central banks to...

Keynote Address by Andrew Sheng at the Joint Conference organized by the Institute of Global Economics and the International Monetary Fund

We construct four market-specific Financial Stress Indices (FSIs) and overall FSIs for the ASEAN-5 economies from 1997 to 2009. Using the FSIs, we establish stylized features of financial stress and characterize the connectivity of financial markets. The results show that stress was most severe...