Integrating Islamic Positions into European Public Discourse: The Paradigmatic Example of Tariq Ramadan

As the continuing relevance of religion to secular European societies garners increasing recognition, the question remains of which religious positions may assume a public role, with Islam at the center of many debates. This article complements the ongoing theoretical debate with a detailed case study analyzing the major works of Islamic scholar and public intellectual Tariq Ramadan. I show that in the last two decades Ramadan significantly modified his views on Islam and European societies. I argue that these adjustments were interdependent, and as such paradigmatically illustrate that the integration of Islamic positions into public discourse depends on shifts in the understanding of both concepts.

Anke von Kügelgen on Contemporary Islamic Thought

Anke von Kügelgen joins Peter to discuss developments over the last century or so, including attitudes towards past thinkers like Avicenna, Averroes and Ibn Taymiyya. This interview is based on research conducted to write a forthcoming book on Philosophy in the Islamic world in the 19th and 20th centuries, to be co-edited by Prof von Kügelgen together Professor Ulrich Rudolph, and Michael Frey as redactor. It will be the fourth volume of a German Overview of the whole history of philosophy in the Islamic world (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie in der islamischen Welt, published by Schwabe Verlag in Basel). Prof von Kügelgen would like to recognize the contribution of her collaborators: her main partner for the philosophy in the Arab speaking countries is Sarhan Dhouib, originally from Tunesia, now at the University of Kassel. For Muslim Southasia, she is working with Jan Peter Hartung from the SOAS in London, and for Iran, Reza Hajatpour, Katajun Amirpur and Roman Seidel who are all at present at German Universities. The part on Philosophy in the Ottoman Empire is written by Sait Özervarlı from the Yildiz Teknik Universitesi in Istanbul and for Turkey by Christoph Herzog from the University of Bamberg.

An 'Ideal' Decomposition of Industry Dynamics: An Application to the Nationwide and State Level U.S. Banking Industry

This paper considers the aggregate performance of the banking industry, applying a modified and extended dynamic decomposition of bank return on equity. The aggregate performance of any industry depends on the underlying microeconomic dynamics within that industry . adjustments within banks, reallocations between banks, entry of new banks, and exit of existing banks. Bailey, Hulten, and Campbell (1992) and Haltiwanger (1997) develop dynamic decompositions of industry performance. We extend those analyses to derive an ideal decomposition that includes their decomposition as one component. We also extend the decomposition, consider geography, and implement decomposition on a state-by-state basis, linking that geographic decomposition back to the national level. We then consider how deregulation of geographic restrictions on bank activity affects the components of the state-level dynamic decomposition, controlling for competition and the state of the economy within each state and employing fixed- and random-effects estimation for a panel database across the fifty states and the District of Columbia from 1976 to 2000.

Has Deregulation Affected Births, Deaths, and Marriages in the U.S. Commercial Banking Industry?

Regulatory change not seen since the Great Depression swept the U.S. banking industry beginning in the early 1980s and culminating with the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. Banking analysts anticipated dramatic consolidation with large numbers of mergers and acquisitions. Less well documented, but equally important, was the continuing entry of new banks, tempering the decline in the overall number of banking institutions. This paper examines whether deregulation affected bank new-charter (birth), failure (death), and merger (marriage) rates during the 1980s and 1990s after controlling for bank performance and state economic activity. We find evidence that intrastate deregulation stimulated births and marriages, but not deaths. Moreover, we find little evidence that interstate deregulation affected births, deaths, or marriages, except that the marriage rate rose after the implementation of the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act. Finally, pair-wise temporal causality tests among births, deaths, and marriages show that mergers temporally lead new charters and that failures lead mergers (a demonstration effect).

Productivity Growth and Efficiency in Indian Banking: A Comparison of Public, Private, and Foreign Banks

India's public sector banks (PSBs) are compared unfavorably with their private sector counterparts, domestic and foreign. This comparison rests, for the most part, on financial measures of performance, and such a comparison provides much of the rationale for privatization of PSBs.In this paper, we attempt a comparison between PSBs and their private sector counterparts based on measures of productivity that use quantities of outputs and inputs. We employ two measures of productivity: Tornqvist and Malmquist total factor productivity growth. We attempt these comparisons over the period 1992-2000, comparing PSBs with both domestic private and foreign banks. Out of a total of four comparisons we have made, there are no differences in three cases, PSBs do better in two, and foreign banks in one. To put it differently, PSBs are seen to be at a disadvantage in only one out of six comparisons. It is difficult, therefore, to sustain the proposition that efficiency and productivity have been lower in public sector banks relative to their peers in the private sector.

An 'Ideal' Deconposition of Industry Dynamics: An Application to the Nationwide and State Level U.S. Banking Industry

This paper considers the aggregate performance of the banking industry, applying a modified and extended dynamic decomposition of bank return on equity. The aggregate performance of any industry depends on the underlying microeconomic dynamics within that industry --- adjustments within banks, reallocations between banks, entry of new banks, and exit of existing banks. Bailey, Hulten, and Campbell (1992) and Haltiwanger (1997) develop dynamic decompositions of industry performance. We extend those analyses to derive an ideal dynamic decomposition that includes their dynamic decomposition as one component. We also extend the decomposition, consider geography, and implement decomposition on a state-by-state basis, linking that geographic decomposition back to the national level. We then consider how deregulation of geographic restrictions on bank activity affects the components of the state-level dynamic decomposition, controlling for competition and the state of the economy within each state and employing fixed- and random-effects estimation for a panel database across the fifty states and the District of Columbia from 1976 to 2000.

Has Deregulation Affected Births, Deaths, and Marriages in the U.S. Commercial Banking Industry?

Regulatory change not seen since the Great Depression swept the U.S. banking industry beginning in the early 1980s and culminating with the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. Banking analysts anticipated dramatic consolidation with large numbers of mergers and acquisitions. Less well documented, but equally important, was the continuing entry of new banks, tempering the decline in the overall number of banking institutions. This paper examines whether deregulation affected bank new-charter, failure, and merger rates during the 1980s and 1990s after controlling for bank performance and state economic activity. We find evidence that intrastate deregulation stimulated new charters and mergers, but not failures. Moreover, we find little evidence that interstate deregulation affected new charters, failures, or mergers.

Geographic Deregulation and Commercial Bank Performance in US State Banking Markets

This paper examines the effects of geographical deregulation on commercial bank performance across states. We reach some general conclusions. First, the process of deregulation on an intrastate and interstate basis generally improves bank profitability and performance. Second, the macroeconomic variables -- the unemployment rate and real personal income per capita -- and the average interest rate affect bank performance as much, or more, than the process of deregulation. Finally, while deregulation toward full interstate banking and branching may produce more efficient banks and a healthier banking system, we find mixed results on this issue.

Liberalization, Ownership, and Efficiency in Indian Banking: A Nonparametric Approach

This paper empirically estimates and analyzes various efficiency scores of Indian banks during 1997-2003 using data envelopment analysis (DEA). During the 1990s India's financial sector underwent a process of gradual liberalization aimed at strengthening and improving the operational efficiency of the financial system. It is observed, none the less, that Indian banks are still not much differentiated in terms of input or output oriented technical efficiency and cost efficiency. However, they differ sharply in respect of revenue and profit efficiencies. The results provide interesting insight into the empirical correlates of efficiency scores of Indian banks. Bank size, ownership, and the fact of its being listed on the stock exchange are some of the factors that are found to have positive impact on the average profit efficiency and to some extent revenue efficiency scores are. Finally, we observe that the median efficiency scores of Indian banks in general and of bigger banks in particular have improved considerably during the post-reform period.

Contractual Difficulties in Environmental Management and the Protection of Biodiversity: The Case of Conservation and Mitigation Banking

This paper offers a principal-agent model of feasible private contracting in mitigation and conservation banking aimed at the protection of natural habitat and bio-diversity of US wetlands and uplands. It is shown that while it is straightforward to design an incentive contract, such a contract may not achieve the federally mandated objective of no net loss of habitat. This is because the minimum payment required as an economic incentive to private agents may be greater than what they should receive for the habitat values that they actually created in the field. This possible problem is shown to derive from nonconvexity in the production possibility set between the biological value of land as natural habitat and in non-habitat uses such as in urban development. The paper concludes with a consideration of several institutional devises that may promote the convergence of private contracting and the attainment of no net loss. These include the payment of subsidies, greater accuracy in the identification of actual quality by the principal, and the use of several incentive alignment devises.

Deregulation and Structural Change in the U.S. Commercial Banking Industry

Regulatory change not seen since the Great Depression swept the U.S. banking industry beginning in the early 1980s and culminated with the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. Banking analysts anticipated dramatic consolidation with large numbers of mergers and acquisitions. Some expressed concern about the long-term health of the smaller community banks. This paper describes and discusses the actual evolution of the U.S. banking industry over the past two decades, using the 1976 to 1998 Report of Condition and Income (Call Report) and merger data recently posted on the web site of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Among several results, more permissive interstate banking and branching regulation significantly associates with higher merger rates, with lower net entry rates, and with higher concentration within states. Interestingly, more permissive intrastate banking and branching regulation only associates with higher concentration.