This handbook offers a unique and original collection of analytical studies in Islamic economics and finance, and constitutes a humble addition to the literature on new economic thinking and global finance. The growing risks stemming from higher debt, slower growth, and limited room for policy maneuver raise concerns about the ability and propensity of modern economies to find effective solutions to chronic problems. It is important to understand the structural roots of inherent imbalance, persistence-in-error patterns, policy and governance failures, as well as moral and ethical failures.
Admittedly, finance and economics have their own failures, with abstract theory bearing little relation with the real economy, uncertainties and vicissitudes of economic life. Economic research has certainly become more empirical despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of guidance from theory. The analytics of Islamic economics and finance may not differ from standard frameworks, methods, and techniques used in conventional economics, but may offer new perspectives on the making of financial crises, nature of credit cycles, roots of financial system instability, and determinants of income disparities.
The focus is placed on the logical coherence of Islamic economics and finance, properties of Islamic capital markets, workings of Islamic banking, pricing of Islamic financial instruments, and limits of debt financing, fiscal stimulus and conventional monetary policies, inter alia. Readers with investment, regulatory, and academic interests will find the body of analytical evidence to span many areas of economic inquiry, refuting thereby the false argument that given its religious tenets, Islamic economics is intrinsically narrative, descriptive and not amenable to testable implications. Thus, the handbook may contribute toward a redefinition of a dismal science in search for an elusive balance between rationality, ethics and morality, and toward a remodeling of economies based on risk sharing and prosperity for all humanity
About the author
Zamir Iqbal is currently serving as the Vice President, Finance and CFO of the Islamic Development Bank. Prior to joining the Islamic Development Bank, he served as head of the World Bank Global Islamic Finance Development Center in Istanbul. He has more than 25 years of experience of capital markets, asset management, risk management, and financial sector at the World Bank. Islamic finance has been his research focus and he has co-authored several articles and books on Islamic finance on the topics of banking risk, financial inclusion, economic development, financial stability, and risk-sharing. He played an instrumental role in the publication of World Bank and Is DB’s first Global Report on Islamic Finance. He earned his Ph D in international finance from the George Washington University and served as Professional faculty at Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University.Tarik Akin is Head of the Department of Participation Finance at Finance Office, Presidency of Turkey.His work experience also includes consultant positions at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Silatech-Qatar. He also worked as research assistant in the Center for International Development at Harvard University and INCEIF. Dr. Tarık has earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Bilkent University, master’s degree in international development from Harvard University and Ph D degree in Islamic finance from INCEIF. His research interests include Islamic capital markets, economics of inequality, redistribution policies, and SME finance.
Nabil El Maghrebi is currently serving as dean of the Faculty of Economics, and head of the Graduate School of Economics, Wakayama University, Japan. He is Professor of Finance at Wakayama University, visiting professor at the Center for Mathematical Modeling and Data Science, Osaka University. He is also associate editor of ISRA International Journal of Islamic Finance. He served as research fellow at the International Institute for Advanced Studies, Kyoto, visiting scholar at the International Centre for education in Islamic Finance, Kuala Lumpur, and visiting professor at the Center for International Financial and Economic Research, Loughborough University, United Kingdom. He has more than 25 years of experience in education and research in Japanese national universities. The focus of his research is placed on financial stability, asset pricing, market volatility, risk analysis, and Islamic finance. He developed the VXJ volatility index for the Japanese financial markets, and co-authored several articles on empirical finance and economics as well as the first analytical reference and textbook, Intermediate Islamic Finance. He graduated from Institut des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, IHEC-Carthage, Tunisia, and earned his Ph D in Economics from Osaka University, Japan.
Abbas Mirakhor joined INCEIF in 2010 as Distinguished Scholar and the First Holder of INCEIF’s Chair in Islamic Finance. His research interests include conventional and Islamic economics and finance. He is a graduate of the Kansas State University, USA, where he received his Bachelor, Master and Ph D Degrees in Economics. In 1968, he started his academic career with University of Alabama, USA. Mirakhor has worked as a professor of economics at the University of Alabama, Alabama A&M University, and the Florida Institute of Technology. In 1984, he joined the IMF in Washington DC as an economist. He spent 24 years with the IMF, serving as the organisation’s Executive Director and Dean of the Executive Board, retiring in 2008.
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