The co-existence of the ‘twin' banking and currency crises in emerging market economies has raised concerns regarding the underlying causes and potential remedies. Literatures suggest that there are at least three major approaches that could be used to explain the phenomenon: the microeconomic...

Some argue that corporate finance and governance practices were among the root causes of the Asian crisis. It is alleged that high and increasing corporate debt ratios were partly to blame. This claim is overstated: Only South Korea and arguably Thailand had leverage ratios significantly above...

Per the invitation of the 2008 China-US Forum and Gala Organizers, the author shared China's experience on financial reform and opening-up over the past three decades on a step-by-step basis. During this process, China has created some unique financial structures that may well be worth looking...

One of Islam's five canonical pillars is a predictable, fixed, and mildly progressive tax system called zakat. It was meant to finance various causes typical of a pre-modern government. Implicit in the entire transfer system was personal property rights as well as constraints on government—two...

This paper discusses the theoretical and policy debate on the crisis in Southeast Asia. After contrasting competing interpretations of the crisis, the paper presents stylized facts about fundamental imbalances in the economies of the region before the currency collapse. Then, it reviews current...

The Muslims of South Asia made the transition to modern economic life more slowly than the region’s Hindus. In the first half of the twentieth century, they were relatively less likely to use large-scale and long-living economic organizations, and less likely to serve on corporate boards....

Classical Islamic law recognizes only natural persons; it does not grant standing to corporations. This article explores why Islamic law did not develop a concept akin to the corporation, or borrow one from another legal system. It also identifies processes that delayed the diffusion of the...

The following paper proposes the furtherance of a rational choice explanation for the caste system. Using ethnographic and qualitative evidence on the history of institutional changes in the caste structure of India throughout history, I show that caste has been used in India by invaders and...

Stock market movements are the results of changes in investor sentiment (INSEN) which can even be induced by non-economic events. We consider international cricket events to empirically investigate the notions. Implementing portfolio approach, we conduct the event study along with OLS regression...