Muhammad's Conception of Property as A Bundle of Rights

Property was first conceived of as a bundle of rights in early Islam. The legal instrument that crystallised this Islamic conception was the waqf, a legal entity delivering public welfare in accordance with the wishes of a benefactor. Trusts, which evolved in the thirteenth century, have a rationale analogous to that of waqfs, and in fact may have replicated the legal template of waqfs. The finding that waqfs are germane to Islam has ramifications for policies on waqfs in contemporary Islamic societies.     

THE ROLE OF LAW IN ECONOMIC GROWTH: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract Compared with other explanatory variables, such as capital accumulation, technological innovations, geographical endowments, economic openness, and cultural factors, institutions, especially legal institutions have been regarded as a crucial condition for economic growth in recent years. The importance of legal rules is systematically revealed by a series of cross‐country econometric studies conducted by La Porta et al., who claim that legal origins are central to understanding the divergence in living standards across the regions and countries of the world and, compared with civil law countries, especially those countries with French civil law tradition, common law countries have enjoyed superior economic outcomes. The controversies set off by La Porta et al.'s proposition indicate that there are a number of questions that are difficult to explain by La Porta et al.'s theory, and hence call for more work on comparative analysis of different legal families before a consensus can be reached.     

‘Gatekeepers’ of Islamic financial circuits: Analysing urban geographies of the global Shari’a elite

This paper analyses the importance of ‘Shari’a scholars’ in the Islamic Financial Services (IFS) sector, which has been a growing global practice since the 1970s. Based on Shari’a Law, IFS firms provide banking, finance and insurance respecting faith-based prohibitions on interest, speculation and risk taking. Although IFS firms operate across a variety of scales and involve a range of actors, this paper focuses on the transnational capacities of Shari’a experts employed by IFS firms. These scholars use their extensive knowledge of Shari’a Law to assess the ‘Islamic’ character of a firm's operations, and assist the development of Shari’a-compliant products. As they embody necessary entry-points into Islamic circuits of knowledge and authority, members of what we dub the ‘global Shari’a elite’ can be regarded as ‘gatekeepers’ of Islamic financial circuits. Drawing on a comprehensive data source we present a geographical analysis of Shari’a board membership, nationality and educational background of 253 Shari’a scholars. The results show that the global Shari’a elite connects a limited number of IFS hubs (e.g. Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City, Manama, and London) to knowledge and authority networks falling outside ‘mainstream’ business and service spheres.     

THE PREVENTION OF FINANCIAL CRIME WITHIN AN ISLAMIC LEGAL FRAMEWORK1

The risks associated with financial crime threaten to undermine the stability of the international financial system. This paper explores the Islamic legal approach to the prevention of financial crime and how this can be integrated into international regulatory frameworks.     

留守人群法律保护问题之浅析

我国传统上缺乏法治文化是不争的事实,从儒家忠孝等级伦理到如今的社会人情关系,这是我国社会制度的支撑和底蕴。其中留守人群法律保护问题在几年来尤为突出,成为阻碍法治文化建设中重要一环,一方面因为关于留守人群的法律权威在社会中还未形成,缺乏相关的法律约束和规定,导致了留守人群成为了社会的一大不安因素,而造成这种现象的原因是多方面的,本文主要探究留守人群法律保护问题。     

Diversification by Urbanization: Tracing the Property‐Finance Nexus in Dubai and the Gulf

This article explores the role of liberalized real estate markets in shaping financial‐sector development in the Arab Gulf region. Since 2001, record oil revenues and the inflow of repatriated wealth into the region have generated immense demand for new, productive destinations for surplus capital. Gulf Cooperation Council states have subsequently undergone rapid growth that is intimately tied to the regulatory transformation of urban real estate markets and the circulation of surplus capital from oil rents to the ‘secondary circuit’ of the built environment. With an emphasis on the city of Dubai, we employ the notion of diversification by urbanization to trace the re‐regulation of real estate markets and highlight how these strategies have subsequently shaped Gulf financial markets. Through an examination of the impacts of real estate mega‐project development on local banking credit, equities and Islamic financial markets, we reframe recent urbanization in the region as a process of financial re‐engineering, and identify the emergence of capital groups whose accumulation activities are tightly connected to both the real estate and financial circuit.     

孔子的法律思想探析

本文从孔子法律思想的内容出发,分析孔子法律思想的理论基础及实践基础,进而得出其法律思想是传统文化的精华,为今日中国的改革开放和社会主义经济建设、民主与法制建设服务,这既是法史学走出困境之必需,也是法史学研究的出发点和归宿。     

公民意识的法理解读——基于法治发展的主体要素考量

文章用人文主义的文化分析方法,指出了公民意识是特定法实践结构基础上产生的法律意识及其对法治发展的能动关系,并在与法律意识、法律权威、法律信仰、道德等相关概念的辨析中明确了其作为国家观念、法律传统、文化的不同层次属性。由此,从发展的角度看,法治系统又是一个包括制度要素和主体要素的运动系统。     

Impact of Islamic banking development and major macroeconomic variables on economic growth for Islamic countries: Evidence from panel smooth transition models

This study examines the nonlinear relationship between Islamic banking development, major macroeconomic variables and economic growth in Islamic countries. Using the panel smooth transition model, the results show a positive nonlinear relationship between Islamic banking development and economic growth. Moreover, the relationship between the macroeconomic variables and economic growth is asymmetric and regime-dependent. Further, by using the dynamic panel quantile model, we show that for many cases the Islamic banking variables lead economic growth across the quantiles. More specifically, foreign direct investment, oil production and inflation have a positive impact on economic growth during the normal financial development state, while government consumption, one-lag economic growth, terms of trade and financial development have a negative impact on economic growth for this state. The human capital index, education and the rule of law have an insignificant impact, regardless of the prevailing regime. The results for the separated oil-importing and oil-exporting economies are generally consistent with the combined sample regarding the Islamic banking development variables. As for the macro variables, they have a positive and significant (insignificant) effect on EG for the oil-importing (oil-exporting) economies for almost all models.     

相关制度距离会影响跨国公司在东道国的社会责任表现吗？

以在中国大陆跨国公司为对象,实证研究发现经济制度距离与文化制度距离对跨国公司在东道国的社会责任表现具有消极影响。当母国的法律制度质量明显优于东道国时,法律制度距离对跨国公司在东道国的社会责任表现具有积极影响;进入模式对法律制度距离和文化制度距离与跨国公司在东道国的社会责任表现之间关系具有负向调节作用;跨国公司在东道国的经营经验对法律制度距离与其在东道国的社会责任绩效之间关系具有负向调解作用。     

论大学生法律意识的培养

本文通过对当代大学生法律意识缺失的成因分析,提出通过加强法律基础课程建设、校园文化活动建设等系列措施,来营造依法治校的法治环境,使大学生在潜移默化中提高自身法律意识,树立正确荣辱观。     

法制与文化建设之辩——论如何构建良好的知识产权秩序

作为世界贸易组织的三大支柱之一,知识产权得到世人前所未有的关注。如何在中国这个文化大国建立并维护良好的知识产权秩序,是一个值得探讨的问题。构建良好的知识产权秩序应重在法制建设还是文化建设?笔者认为应是法制建设。     

论山寨行为的法律规制

近几年,山寨一词渐渐为公众所熟悉,山寨文化现象屡见不鲜,山寨产品遍布市场,可以说它已经进入了我们生活的各个方面。山寨行为的存在自有其法律学的意义,然而,形形色色的"山寨行为"同时也带来了许多法律上的纠纷和问题。本文正是从这一问题出发,第一部分从法律学的视野解析了"山寨行为"的基本概念和其产生、特点和基本性质;第二部分从法理学的角度着重分析了我国"山寨行为"的法律规制现状;第三部分是在前两部分讨论的基础上,探讨了实现我国"山寨行为"法律规制的几条重要途径。     

FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN EARLY ISLAM

The absence of female leaders in business and public life is conspicuous in Islamic societies. One explanation may be that Islam imposes legal and social inequality on men and women. However, a comparison of female entrepreneurship in pre‐Islamic society and in Mohammed's era shows that women occupied leadership roles before and after the establishment of Islam. Mohammed's wives were commercially astute, and Mohammed and his contemporaries respected the rights of women to make decisions regarding finances, matrimony and religious affiliation. The right of women to assume public leadership roles is compatible with Islam.     

基于提高大学生法律素质的法律基础教学法探略

目前大学生普遍存在法律知识匮乏、法律意识欠缺、法律能力相对薄弱、法律素质不高等问题。要解决这些问题,必须对大学生法制教育中法律基础课的教学方法进行改革。围绕提高大学生法律素质的主题,应从教学重点、教学内容和教学方式等方面进行改革。     

Islamic equity market integration and volatility spillover between emerging and US stock markets

The purpose of this paper is to study the conditional correlations across the US market and a sample of five Islamic emerging markets, namely Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar, and Malaysia. The empirical design uses MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International) Islamic equity index since it applies stringent restrictions to include companies. Indeed, two main restrictions must be met: (i) the business activity must be compliant with Shari’ah (i.e., Islamic law) guidelines and (ii) interest-bearing investments and leverage ratios should not exceed upper limits. Three models are used: multivariate GARCH BEKK, CCC, and DCC. The estimation results of the three models show that the US and Islamic emerging equity markets are weakly correlated over time. No sheer evidence supports that the US market spills over into the Islamic emerging equity markets. Besides interpreting the results in terms of weak market integration, the peculiar specificities of the Islamic finance industry and the admittance conditions to the MSCI Islamic equity index contribute to explaining them. Indeed, Islamic finance bans interest-bearing investments and imposes some rules, such as asset-backing, which has sizeable impacts on volatility spillover and shocks transmissions, alongside with the close linkage between real and financial sectors. These findings suggest that investors should take caution when investing in the Islamic emerging equity markets and diversifying their portfolios in order to minimize risk.     

Organizationally sensible versus legal‐centric approaches to employment decisions

Many managers and human resource professionals view the law increasingly as an overly restrictive influence on their ability to manage employees effectively. This article is intended to alert HR professionals to the risk that they are unnecessarily contributing to the impact that legal considerations have on the management of employees as a result of “legal‐centric decision making.” We introduce the construct of legal‐ centric decision making, present a model of the primary factors contributing to legal‐centric decision making, provide support for the model from diverse literatures (e.g., behavioral decision making, management, and law), and identify several keys to avoiding legal‐ centric decision making. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Efficiency in Islamic and conventional banking: an international comparison

The paper investigates the efficiency of a sample of Islamic and conventional banks in 10 countries that operate Islamic banking for the period 1996–2002, using an output distance function approach. We obtain measures of efficiency after allowing for environmental influences such as country macroeconomic conditions, accessibility of banking services and bank type. While these factors are assumed to directly influence the shape of the technology, we assume that country dummies and bank size directly influence technical inefficiency. The parameter estimates highlight that during the sample period, Islamic banking appears to be associated with higher input usage. Furthermore, by allowing for bank size and international differences in the underlying inefficiency distributions, we are also able to demonstrate statistically significant differences in inefficiency related to these factors even after controlling for specific environmental characteristics and Islamic banking. Thus, for example, our results suggest that Sudan and Yemen have relatively higher inefficiency while Bahrain and Bangladesh have lower estimated inefficiency. Except for Sudan, where banks exhibits relatively strong returns to scale, most sample banks exhibit very slight returns to scale, although Islamic banks are found to have moderately higher returns to scale than conventional banks. While this suggests that Islamic banks may benefit from increased scale, we would emphasize that our results suggest that identifying and overcoming the factors that cause Islamic banks to have relatively low potential outputs for given input usage levels will be the key challenge for Islamic banking in the coming decades.     

Dubai in the ‘Middle’

In the early 2000s, Dubai seemed the apotheosis of the global city model. Lauded as an embodiment of globalist ideals, or harshly criticized as a representation of the dangers of contemporary urbanism, it was clearly under the spotlight. Then, like the concept of the ‘global city’ itself, it disappeared from the headlines, to be subject only to sporadic and cynical attention. Today some are heralding a ‘return’ of Dubai from the anonymity of the middle ground of global city hierarchies and rankings. What is often forgotten, however, is that urbanism in Dubai did not stop. On the contrary, Dubai's continuous ‘worlding’ offers a productive opportunity for the encounter of ‘global’ and ‘ordinary’ modes of urban analysis. By unpacking the construction of a global Dubai, this article advocates greater sensitivity to the multiscalar politics that shape its continuity. Stepping beyond rumours of crisis and decline, it aims to connect the global fortunes and everyday processes that jointly characterize the development of global cities. ‘Global’ and ‘ordinary’ urbanism, it argues, are but two registers of how we could, in Warren Magnusson's words, ‘see like a city’.