Islamic Finance

Saudi Arabia has taken initiatives toward diversifying the economy and steering away from a dependence on oil as the main revenue source. The Saudi Arabian Agricultural Bank (SAAB) was created in 1963 to provide farm operators with interest free credit to purchase equipment and further develop production in order to improve their income. Despite operating for sixteen years, SAAB has fallen short of its goal of assisting a majority of farm operators.

This critical hermeneutic research tells the stories of enterprises seeking balance between their profits and care for their communities. This work demonstrates business' commitment to creative social action that mitigates community needs or enhances community life. The central premise explores enterprises working for social betterment while maintaining a profit-orientation. Research follows a critical hermeneutic philosophy as applied to an interpretive anthropological protocol for inquiry and analysis.

This study evaluates the advantages and drawbacks of U.S. socially responsible community investment (SRCI) as a source of loan capital by microfinance institutions (MFIs), which offer loans to low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries. The study finds that SRCI capital offers an appropriate capital source to MFIs. This research examines nine SRCI debt mechanisms, which are compared to determine the benefits and limitations of each from the perspectives of U.S. investors and MFI borrowers.

This study highlights Luther's ethical commentary on economic matters, concentrating upon normative attitudes toward money, property, price and interest. The purpose is to illustrate the traditions with which Luther's views conform to or deviate from. Luther did not follow the newly formulated economic views of some early modern theologians and philosophers. According to Luther, private property is not a freedom-right in the modern sense (Gerson), but a task given by God as the ultimate owner.

This dissertation argues that, unlike the views of Adam Smith, economic analysis should incorporate both secular ethics and major religious teachings, including Judaism, Christianity,

This study utilizes financial development theories to analyze the banking and informal credit markets in Iran. With regards to financial liberalization policies, this thesis argues through historical examples that informal credit markets are able to operate due to cost advantages in dealing with certain groups, negative interest rates do not necessarily lead to low investment and savings levels, and that financial repression does not necessarily slow growth.

This thesis investigates the structural differences in financial institutions between industrial and developing countries, and evaluates the validity of models originally used to analyze industrial institutions in terms of developing countries. Existing models such as static trade-off and pecking order are not entirely applicable to developing countries, and thus a new model is needed to account for anomalies within the developing countries chosen as case studies (India, Korea, Malaysia, Jordan, and Zimbabwe).

Muslim countries need an Islamic insurance system in order to better develop economically.

This dissertation presents empirical evidence on three previously overlooked aspects of the economics of crime. The first essays observes that pawnshops serve the credit needs of low-income individuals and consequently are located in higher crime communities. However, pawnshops are often suspected of being outlets for stolen property and if so, they may stimulate criminal activity. To break this simultaneity, this paper uses usury laws as instrumental variables to identify the causal effect of pawnshops on crime.