Islamic Monetary Economics: Insights from the Literature

This chapter reviews critical early literature of Islamic monetary economics. The prohibition of Riba has imposed challenges on Islamic economists to come up with the viable alternatives to achieve Islamic monetary policy goals. Our extensive review of theoretical and empirical literature indicates that equity based profit- and loss-sharing instruments have been proposed for conducting open market operations in an interest-free economy. Theoretically, the central bank can achieve desired goals by controlling money supply and profit-sharing ratios. The findings from empirical literature suggest that money demand tend to be more stable in an interest-free economy. Whether monetary transmission works through Islamic banking channel is controversial, but the literature is growing. These findings are not surprising as majority Muslim countries lack sustainable and equitable economic growth. Moreover, these countries suffer from higher inflation and unemployment with little or no monetary freedom due to fixed exchange rate regime, shallow financial markets and strict capital control

A Survival Analysis of Islamic and Conventional Banks

Are Islamic banks inherently more stable than conventional banks? We address this question by applying a survival analysis based on the Cox proportional hazard model to a comprehensive sample of 421 banks in 20 Middle and Far Eastern countries from 1995 to 2010. By comparing the failure risk for both bank types, we find that Islamic banks have a significantly lower risk of failure than that of their conventional peers. This lower risk is based both unconditionally and conditionally on bank-specific (microeconomic) variables as well as macroeconomic and market structure variables. Our findings indicate that the design and implementation of early warning systems for bank failure should recognize the distinct risk profiles of the two bank types

Smart grid communication and networking technologies: recent developments and future challenges

The smart grid is ostensibly the next generation power grid in which electrical energy distribution and management is efficiently performed by exploiting information communication technologies such as pervasive computing, in the control and decision-making processes. The smart grid is characterised by such functionality as being able to adapt to load and demand changes, intelligently manage bidirectional data flow and crucially enhance system reliability, robustness, security and sustainability. Communication networks play a crucial role in facilitating these features and are an integral component in any smart grid management system. In this chapter, the role of the communications network in smart grid operation is described together with its main functionalities. In particular, the challenges and opportunities for integrating existing and future wireless and mobile networks into the smart grid will be analysed, while the chapter concludes by identifying some future research directions for smart grid technologies

What is Islamic microfinance?

Islamic microfinance is a specialized part in a growing and diverse body of microfinance literature. To date, there are quite a few papers on Islamic microfinance that are published in reputable journals, which fairly represent the size of Islamic microfinance industry compared to the overall microfinance sector. This chapter aims to provide an overview of Islamic microfinance in the context of mainstream microfinance sector and highlights some of the salient features that differentiate Islamic microfinance with conventional or overall microfinance. It will discuss the origin, different approaches in the development, and characteristics of Islamic microfinance. These will be followed by discussion on lending models, sources and uses of funds, and poverty impact of Islamic microfinance institutions. Finally, this chapter will conclude will some thoughts on possible opportunities for future Islamic microfinance research