MALAYSIA - PUBLICATIONS - IMF Working Paper 12-151 - What's in it for me ?

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What’s in It for Me? A Primer on Differences between Islamic and Conventional Finance in Malaysia

Krasicka, Olga ; Nowak, Sylwia 

IMF Working Papers - June 2012 - 12/151

 

Summary: What attracts conventional investors to Islamic financial instruments? We answer this question by comparing Malaysian Islamic and conventional security prices and their response to macrofinancial factors. Our analysis suggests that Islamic and conventional bond and equity prices are driven by common factors. Likewise, especially in recent years, Islamic banks have responded to economic and financial shocks in the same way as conventional banks, suggesting that the gap between Islamic and conventional financial practices is shrinking. (source)

WORLD - PUBLICATIONS - Operative Principles of Islamic Derivatives - Towards a Coherent Theory

Operative Principles of Islamic Derivatives - Towards a Coherent Theory

IMF Working Paper Series

Andreas Jobst and Juan Sole

March 1, 2012

Summary: Derivatives are few and far between in countries where the compatibility of financial transactions with Islamic law requires the development of shari’ah-compliant structures. Islamic finance is governed by the shari’ah, which bans speculation and gambling, and stipulates that income must be derived as profits from the shared generation of goods and services between counterparties rather than interest or a guaranteed return. The paper explains the fundamental legal principles underpinning Islamic finance with a view towards developing a cohesive theory of derivatives subject to shari’ahprinciples. After critically reviewing accepted contracts and the scholastic debate surrounding existing financial innovation in this area, the paper offers an axiomatic perspective on a principle-based permissibility of derivatives under Islamic law. (source)

WORLD - IMF - Monetary Policy, Bank Leverage, and Financial Stability

IMF Working Paper 110244
Monetary Policy, Bank Leverage, and Financial Stability

Valencia Fabian

Summary: This paper develops a model to assess how monetary policy rates affect bank risk-taking. In the model, a reduction in the risk-free rate increases lending profitability by reducing funding costs and increasing the surplus the monopolistic bank extracts from borrowers. Under limited liability, this increased profitability affects only upside returns, inducing the bank to take excessive leverage and hence risk. Excessive risk-taking increases as the interest rate decreases. At a broader level, the model illustrates how a benign macroeconomic environment can lead to excessive risk-taking, and thus it highlights a role for macroprudential regulation. (source)

WORLD - IMF - PUBLICATIONS - The Bright and the Dark Side of Cross-Border Banking Linkages

The Bright and the Dark Side of Cross-Border Banking Linkages

Cihák, Martin ; Muñoz, Sònia ; Scuzzarella, Ryan

Series : IMF Working Paper  WP/11.186

Publication date : Aug 1, 2011

Summary: When a country’s banking system becomes more linked to the global banking network, does that system get more or less prone to a banking crisis? Using model simulations and econometric estimates based on a world-wide dataset, we find an M-shaped relationship between financial stability of a country’s banking sector and its interconnectedness. In particular, for banking sectors that are not very connected to the global banking network, increases in interconnectedness are associated with a reduced probability of a banking crisis. Once interconnectedness reaches a certain value, further increases in interconnectedness can increase the probability of a banking crisis. Our findings suggest that it may be beneficial for policies to support greater interlinkages for less connected banking systems, but after a certain point the advantages of increased interconnectedness become less clear.

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ARTICLES - Deconstructing The International Business Cycle: Why Does A U.S. Sneeze Give The Rest Of The World A Cold?

Summary: The 2008 crisis underscored the interconnectedness of the international business cycle, with U.S. shocks leading to the largest global slowdown since the 1930s. We estimate spillover effects across major advanced country regions in a structural VAR (SVAR) using pre-crisis data. Our new method freely estimates the contemporaneous correlation matrix for underlying shocks in the VAR and (uniquely, to our knowledge) the associated uncertainty. Our results suggest that the international business cycle is largely driven by U.S. financial shocks with a significant impact from global shocks, mainly reflecting commodity prices. Other advanced economic regions play a much smaller and regional role in growth spillovers. Our findings are consistent with the emerging evidence on the current crisis.