This study analyses the effects of financial openness on productive efficiency and technology catch-up in four countries in the Basin (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia), as compared to a group of developed countries (France, Germany, Japan and the UK) over the 1985–2005 period. Using...

Finance is expected to play a major role in equitable and sustainable economic development. However, the track record of conventional finance is not encouraging for the task. It has not been very successful in addressing unemployment and poverty. Indeed, the stylized facts show that many...

The relationship between economic development and income inequality is not neutral vis-à-vis the role of the financial system in responding to the needs of different categories of agents. Indeed, as shown by the literature of the persistent inequality (e.g. Banarjee and Newman, 1993; Piketty,...

This paper compares sharing (equity) and debt contracts in presence of moral hazard which manifests as the hidden effort undertaken by the entrepreneur. The originality of this paper relatively to the existing studies consists in performing the comparison between the two types of contracts while...

The book pinpoints the failure of conventional finance in providing inclusive growth to the world economies and explores the potential of Islamic Finance to generate equitable and sustainable economic development in the low income countries. This potential role of Islamic finance is discussed in...

This paper analyses the feasibility of profit and loss sharing (PLS) contracts in presence of moral hazard between the principal (financier) and the agent (entrepreneur). It shows that introducing a rule for sharing profits and losses in contingence with the outcome of the entrepreneur’s...

This paper builds a theoretical model based on Allen and Gale (2000) to analyse how unexpected shock affecting the banking assets in one region can generate bankruptcy in a second region. I also analyse the effect of the presence in a third region of an Islamic bank on the vulnerability of...

This paper compares profit sharing and debt contracts in presence of moral hazard. Its originality relatively to the existing studies consists in performing the comparison between the two contracts in a more general context. Firstly, the internal funds of the agent (entrepreneur) are enabled to...

The role of Microfinance in alleviating poverty and enhancing social development is increasing. However, Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) suffer from two important problems which undermine their growth. The first one is inherent to their exposure to information asymmetry (adverse selection and...

The role of Microfinance in alleviating poverty and enhancing social development is increasing. However, Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) suffer from two important problems which undermine their growth. The first one is inherent to their exposure to information asymmetry (adverse selection and...