Usury and Just Compensation: Religious and Financial Ethics in Historical Perspective

Usury is a concept often associated more with religiously based financial ethics, whether Christian or Islamic, than with the secular world of contemporary finance. The problem is compounded by a tendency to interpret riba, prohibited within Islam, as both usury and interest, without adequately distinguishing these concepts. This paper argues that in Christian tradition usury has always evoked the notion of money demanded in excess of what is owed on a loan, disrupting a relationship of equality between people, whereas interest was seen as referring to just compensation to the lender. Although it is often claimed that hostility towards ‘usury’ has been in retreat in the West since the protestant Reformation, we would argue that the crucial break came not with Calvin, but with Jeremy Bentham, whose critique of the arguments of Adam Smith, upholding the reasonableness of the laws against usury, led to the abolition of the usury laws in England in 1854. There has to be a role for law, whether Islamic or secular, in regulating financial relationships. We argue that by retrieving the necessary distinction between demanding usury as illegitimate predatory lending and interest as legitimate compensation, we can discover common ground behind the driving principles of financial ethics within both Islamic and Christian tradition that may still be of relevance today. By re-examining past ethical discussions of the distinction between usury and just compensation, we argue that the world’s religious traditions can make significant contributions to contemporary debate. Constant Mews is Director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology at Monash University. He holds PhD and Masters degrees in medieval history, and pursues research in medieval religion, thought and ethics. Ibrahim Abraham is a PhD student in the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, with degrees in religion studies as well as law. His research interests include religion and culture, fair trade, and human rights.     

论我国金融监管机构自体问责制度的完善

金融监管机构的自体问责是问责制度的重要组成部分,与外部的异体问责成互补关系。金融监管机构的自体问责若采用最高监管权力层内部各部门间互为问责的形式,可以克服“问责人与责任人合为一体”的缺陷,而这必须以良好的内部治理结构为基础。本文分析了十多个国家的金融监管机构的治理结构与自体问责制度,并据此对我国金融监管机构自体问责的完善提出建议。     

Sustainability reporting in Norway – an assessment of performance in the context of legal demands and socio‐political drivers

This article explores the influence of societal, political and regulatory characteristics and developments on the quality of corporate sustainability disclosures in Norway. The paper presents an assessment both of mandatory reporting under the Norwegian Accounting Act, and of voluntary reporting in annual and separate non‐financial reports, by the 100 largest firms in Norway. Our results reveal that only 10% of the companies comply with the legal requirements on environmental reporting, while only half of the firms comply with the legal reporting provisions on working environment and gender equality. The vast majority of firms also report unsatisfactorily on non‐financial issues in the voluntary disclosures assessed. Analysing the causes of these results, we contend that the situation is characterized by (1) an apparent lack of political and social drivers for sustainability reporting in Norway and (2) an absence of sufficient monitoring and enforcement of the environmental reporting legislation on the part of Norwegian authorities. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Predicting Stock Returns Using Financial Statement Information

We examine the profitability of the Ou and Penman (1989a) Pr trading strategy and the Holthausen and Larcker (1992) Prob trading strategy over the period 1980–1992 in the UK. This is a test of whether an investor can earn abnormal returns by exploiting fundamental accounting data. We employ alternative abnormal return metrics and research designs to control for risk. Using a UK dataset offers an independent test because the UK differs from the US in its formal and informal financial reporting environment, its structure of share ownership, and the behaviour of its economy over the study period. We find consistent evidence that an investor could have used a summary measure of financial statement information to predict future abnormal returns by indirectly predicting one-year-ahead earnings changes, but only weak and inconsistent evidence that an investor could have used a summary measure of financial statement information to predict one-year-ahead stock returns directly. We offer some thoughts on the reasons for these different results.     

企业主要利益相关者显性利益的分析及其量化

按照主动性、重要性、能否量化三个标准,将股东、管理人员、职工、债权人、国家、供应商六个主体,作为所界定的主要利益相关者。分析他们的主要显性利益要求,并以传统财务报表为基础,从各报表中科目的组合对主要利益相关者显性利益进行量化。     

知识经济与金融支持

知识经济是世界经济发展的潮流。本文简要介绍了知识经济的特征，在此基础上论述了金融支持对知识经济发展的必要性和可行性,指出金融支持是知识经济发展的重要条件，而知识经济是金融业发展的新的效益增长点。同时指出我国在金融业和知识经济发展两方面存在的问题，并提出了金融业支持知识经济发展的具体措施。     

Financial Markets for Unknown Risks if Beliefs Differ

We consider a general equilibrium model with individual and collective risks. The article builds on a contribution by Chichilnisky and Heal, who show that contingent Arrow–Debreu equilibria can also be supported in economies with Arrow securities and mutual insurance contracts. However, they show this to be true in general only if beliefs are identical, a very restrictive assumption in the context of unknown risks. Moreover, they claim complete insurance in equilibrium to be impossible if beliefs are different. We show that even with different beliefs, firstly, complete insurance is possible in each statistical state, and secondly, contingent equilibrium can still be supported in economies with insurance and securities.     

当代金融中介理论发展的特殊性与拓展空间

金融中介理论研究至今已开展了50年。这期间,虽然也曾产生出许多具有重要贡献的观点和经典的文献,但是与几乎是同时期发展起来的资本市场理论相比较,整体的应用性和影响力都不如资本市场理论那样强大。两种理论之间不平衡发展的主要原因在于理论研究定位不同,对实践的具体指导不同。探讨金融中介理论发展的特殊性和拓展空间,将有利于明确理论研究的未来发展方向,加强对多元化发展的金融中介机构作用的认识。     

A Comparative Analysis of Auditor, Manager and Financial Analyst Interpretations of SFAS 5 Disclosure Guidelines

This study examines empirically whether financial analysts (users), as well as managers (preparers) and external auditors ascribe different interpretations to the SFAS 5 disclosure criteria. We find: (1) financial analysts are, on average, more conservative than managers and auditors in their numerical interpretations of both the 'remote' and 'probable' verbal phrases; (2) managers and auditors share very similar numerical interpretations of these verbal phrases; (3) audit partners' numerical interpretations of the 'remote' region are between those of managers and users, whereas audit managers align their numerical interpretations with those of managers. One danger is that preparers of financial statements may omit loss contingency information that users consider valuable.     

Research on Financial Contract Structure

Financial decision-making is the central link of enterprise financial management. The prevalent theory of financial decision-making is ＂capital structure＂. This paper makes a new explanation of ＂capital structure＂, which is ＂financial contract structure＂ based on interacts among stakeholders. It developed the intension and extension of＂capital structure＂.