This article provides an overview of the potential market for Islamic finance and some of the challenges providers face in serving this unique market.

Because financial transactions are important for wealth accumulation, and rely on trust and confidence in institutions, the financial market behavior of immigrants can provide important insights into the assimilation process. Compared to the native-born, immigrants are less likely to own savings...

A growing body of theoretical and empirical work identifies the ability of a country’s institutions to protect private property and provide incentives for investment as a key explanation for the persistent disparity in financial market development. We add to this literature by analyzing the...

We use data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey from 1980-2003 combined with item specific Consumer Price Index data to calculate monthly chain-weighted inflation measures for thirteen different demographic groups and for the overall urban population from 1981-2004. We find that the inflation...

We find that wealthier and more educated immigrants are more likely to make use of basic banking services and other formal financial services. Holding these (and other) factors constant, we find immigrants from countries with more effective institutions are more likely to have a relationship...

More than 35% of Thai households either give or receive remittances, and remittances account for about one-third of the income of the receiving households. Remittance relationships may be an important source of protection against adverse events for the individuals involved. This paper provides...

Bank regulators are required to consider a bank’s record of providing credit to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and individuals in approving bank applications for mergers and acquisitions. We test the hypothesis that banks strategically prepare for the regulatory and public scrutiny...

In addition to their direct effects, episodes of financial instability may decrease investor confidence. Measuring the impact of a crisis on investor confidence is complicated by the fact that it is difficult to disentangle the effect of investor confidence from coincident direct effects of the...