By Patrick Imam
The growing appetite for emerging market financial assets (such as equity or bonds) by local and foreign investors has not been met by a commensurate increase in the supply of these assets. This is because an economy’s ability to produce output is only imperfectly linked to its ability to generate financial assets.
High food prices are here to stay. This should be a reason of great concern not only in less developed countries but also in the most dynamic emerging market economies.
By Jeremy Rifkin
Our industrial civilization is at a crossroads. Oil and the other fossil fuel energies that make up the industrial way of life are sunsetting, and the technologies made from and propelled by these energies are antiquated. The entire industrial infrastructure built off of fossil fuels is aging and in disrepair. The result is that unemployment is rising to dangerous levels all over the world. Governments, businesses and consumers are awash in debt and living standards are declining everywhere. A record one billion human beings — nearly one seventh of the human race—face hunger and starvation. Worse, climate change from fossil fuel-based industrial activity looms on the horizon, imperiling our own species’ very ability to survive.
By Adrian Done
How much time do you dedicate to thinking about the REALLY BIG issues that are likely to affect your personal and professional life in the next 20 years?
Manage Third Parties and Manage Your Risks
By Adam Turteltaub
Elevating board performance: The significance of director mindset, operating context, and other behavioral and functional considerations
By Simon C.Y. Wong
How Green is the Cloud?
By Kfir Godrich, VP & Managing Principal for HP Technology Services
Finance
Investing in Liquid Gold
Putting Mind into Markets
By David Tuckett
Time to Win Investors Over
By Baruch Lev
World Economy
Rethinking Global Financial Governance Reform
By Daniel D. Bradlow
The Causes of the Banking Crises of the 1920’s
By Simon D. Norton
Emerging Markets are Re-Shaping the Global Economy, But Also Shaking It
By George Magnus
An Inquiry into Why America Spends While the World Saves
By Sheldon Garon
Africa
The New Scramble for Africa
By Pádraig Carmody
China
Changes at the top in Chinese Banking
By Violaine Cousin
Middle East
The Believers Are But A Single Brotherhood1: Political Islam In Post-Mubarak Egypt
By Joseph Yackley
From A Niche Market To The Mainstream: What Has Driven Islamic Banking Growth?
By Patrick Imam and Kangni Kpodar
Conventional versus Islamic Private Equity
By Mohamed Ali Chatti and Ouidad Yousfi
By Mohamed Ali Chatti and Ouidad Yousfi
There are some similarities between Islamic and conventional PE, like for example the active participation, the quick exit of the PE fund and the close partnership. But they display also different features.
By Patrick Imam and Kangni Kpodar
Despite the rapid growth in Islamic banking during the past decade, challenges remain, pointing to the need for further reforms and greater harmonization in the interpretation of what is Shariah compliant between Islamic scholars and bankers.
The fall of Mubarak and the rise of political Islam illustrate the hidden power of social change. To understand how Egypt’s Islamists performed so well and what it means for Egypt’s future, turn the clocks back to 1952.
At the end of October 2011, the heads of the three financial sector regulators were rotated. It is time to ask what are the rules behind the scenes and what the future holds for the Chinese financial sector.
Something has certainly changed in the intervening years in Africa, and in its relations with the outside world, even if excessive pessimism or optimism is unwarranted. What accounts for these changes, and what does this mean for African politics and economic development into the future?
