Islamic finance industry mostly uses LIBOR linked financial contracts which are akin to debt financing than the more preferable participatory modes of Mudarabah and Musharakah. As per the current orthodox understanding and practice of Islamic finance, the often cited preferable modes like...

Financial intermediation serves a valuable purpose, but it can also be structured using equity modes of financing. This can relieve the financee and increase diversity of entrepreneurial undertakings as in debt based commercial financing, there is little room for diversity with obligatory and...

Islamic banking in Pakistan has completed one decade of operations in Pakistan and now there are 5 full-fledged Islamic banks and more than 15 conventional banks with Islamic banking windows. Due to the consistent double digit growth in total assets, the market share had steadily risen to 7% by...

This study used the simple co-integration technique to estimate the direct tax buoyancy for Pakistan economy for the 36 year period starting from FY-1974 to FY-2009. The buoyancy estimated was more than unity which represents slight improvement over previous estimates in past studies. The study...

Interest is prohibited in all monotheist religions. Apart from religion, interest is also regarded as unjust price of money capital by pioneer secular philosophers as well as some renowned economists. However, it is argued by some economists that modern day, market driven interest rate in a...

The ongoing sovereign debt crisis in Europe and U.S. is challenging the conventional wisdom and is creating fears of a double dip recession in 2012. Massive levels of debt and consumption beyond means and speedy financial innovation with lax regulation has put major economies in a deep hole....

Mathematical tractability has restricted economic analysis of consumer behavior within a confined boundary of certain axioms. Often, these axioms are found to be empirically false. Even more importantly, these axioms and the analytical framework based on them is incapable of explaining economic...

In this study, we attempt to document the progress in Islamic banking industry of Pakistan towards fostering an egalitarian and equitable financial intermediation. We use a set of quantitative indicators to objectively asses the performance of Islamic banks towards fostering a participative,...

Islamic banking has achieved exceptional growth in the last two decades and has been able to sustain it even during the recession and afterwards. In this paper, we highlight that lack of flexible financing options, incomplete product mix, scale diseconomies, contractual frictions and constraints...