Articles on Islamic Economics
When a person is helped by a co-worker, neighbour, friend or any other individual in confidentiality, the ego and self-respect of the receiving individual is not hurt or hurt as much as in receiving such benefits publicly from an institution.
It is important that debt relief and debt concessions are afforded to them so that their fiscal bleeding does not compromise work and progress on SDGs. As focus shifts to growth to regenerate employment for those who lost employment after the emergence of COVID-19, it is pertinent to not lose focus of SDGs.
There is need for an economic framework that brings moderation, responsibility, conservation, dignity of life, empathy, sharing, equitable distribution and justice in society.
IPS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on December 27, 2021 with Islamic Economics Project (IEP). MoU will facilitate both organizations to collaborate in holding and promoting joint online and on-ground events, details of which will be covered and reported on the websites of both organizations as well as in Moral Reflections on Economics – a monthly online publication of IEP.
The paper discusses reforms in monetary policy to reorient it towards serving the needs of real economy. It focuses on reforms that can be introduced in the transitional phase since reconceptualising the whole monetary system with a reformed outlook on nature of currency, mode of currency issue, money creation and credit creation would take much longer time and requires greater political will.
This paper presents the ideas of transformative school in Islamic economics. Transformative school of thought in the methodology of Islamic economics is not that much interested in descriptive studies and improving the predictive capability of models to analyze market outcomes and to design policies accordingly. It believes in the transformation of choices through education.
Divine Economics framework provides an empirical basis of behavioural comparison between religious and non-religious agents with regards to their economic and non-economic choices. It incorporates the methodological framework of mainstream economics for the study of religion and economics in each other’s perspective. It looks at religious behaviour from the lens of ‘economic good’ and ‘economic behaviour’ in markets where the choice has economic considerations, such as relative prices, opportunity cost of time, income effect and substitution effect. However, reliance on stated preferences, overlap between religious and non-religious activities, inability to observe the motivation and intention behind choices and to judge the quality of religious activities are some of the challenges in this research framework.
Those scientists who believe in Scientism and hold that the experimental method is the only arbiter in all matters of life need to look no further than the field of economics where the tools and concepts of physics are applied. Even though science cannot be arbiter in morals, defining motives, public policy and politics, but it cannot even be a perfect and sufficient tool in explaining economic behaviour by taking the analogy of animal behaviour which is based on self-interest and survival instincts.
If the government wishes to align the government finances in a way that converges with IFI principles, the government may need to work to eliminate conventional debt and adopt raising funds using productive investments only.
Inclusivity, equitable distribution of resources and socio-economic mobility do not determine Shari’ah compliance or validity. However, these visionary goals are the aspirations of many people in academics and public at large. The realists contend that the visionary objectives of equitable distribution of income will be taken care of in the long run by Islamic social finance institutions, such as Zakat and Waqf. Islamic banks as one part of Islamic finance ecosystem will continue to serve the short term financing requirements of clients and for which debt based Islamic modes of financing are the suitable options.
Islamic Economics Project 