By: Dr. Iraj Toutounchian and Prof. C. G. Harcourt.
"...ideologies...affect the topics discussed, the manner of discussion, the factors included or left out or inadequately stressed in arguments, comments, and models and attitudes shown, sympathetic or hostile,...to past and contemporary economists' works and views. "
Based upon above statement it can be argued that there are a lot of differences between Islamic and conventional banking systems both at micro and macro levels. These differences are in approach, in concepts, and in the resulting behaviour.
My presentation is based upon the following primary and secondary assertions, which are the result of 27 papers and 3 books. The last book: "Comparative Money and Banking in Capitalistic and Islamic Systems", in 856 pages, has been recognized in February 2002 in Iran as "The Economic Book of The Year". These assertions and the final conclusion may seem rather unorthodox, but they are the product of their own logical reasoning. The essence of my paper is thus nothing but one of the logical consequences, among others, of the following assertions everybody is able to derive.Primary assertions are those, which can directly be used to reach the final conclusion of this paper. Secondary assertions are key issues to be used, one way or another, to lead one to the problems in implementing Islamic Banking.
These two types of assertions, however, constitute separable sets. Based upon the fact that the primary function of banks is to deal with "money", one cannot speak about " banking" without referring to money. Hence, it seems a "must" to understand money first. Otherwise many Miss-interpretations may arise as the result. Interest and profit, although being clear concepts, have been subjected to many misunderstandings. To be sure, let me make them clear at the outset. Interest and profit are rewards to money and capital investment, respectively. In other words, capital investment produces profits and money produces interest.
Furthermore, it has constantly and mistakenly written and quoted by some writers that the price of money is 1 (unity). One is the exchange rate of money with itself; but the price of money is interest (rate). Some of my findings about the nature and role of profits closely correspond to those of Prof. Adrian Wood in his seminal book " A Theory of Profits ". With the abolishment of interest (as it has in Islamic school of economic thought), the LM curve loses its total validity and becomes redundant and useless. All in all, interest is a normative concept (basically discussed in schools of economic thoughts), which can neither be proved nor refuted by use of scientific tools of analysis. It is a value judgement. In evaluating an economic system, economists are supposed to take it for granted.
Assertions:
1. In economics we are basically dealing with two inter-related concepts; one is legal (or conventional) concept and the other is real concept. To distinguish one from another, one does not need to focus on the physical features of each one. All contractual agreements like marriage, ownership, organizational hierarchy, money, interest, and the like fall into the first category; while human beings, commodities, buildings, amenity, and the like are included in the second category. Each one of these two concepts is able to produce the other or be transformed into itself. Let us call these two properties " Completeness" and " Reflexivity", respectively. Hence, money itself being a legal concept is capable to producing another legal concept (actually its derivative) called "interest" or to produce real concept like capital equipment.
2. Money as a potential capital is a legal (conventional) concept capable of being transformed into actual capital. A simple example would be Mudarabah contract, among others, in which as soon as one person's money is legally combined with another person's labour force, the nature and the function of money is changed into capital. Given that in an Islamic framework there is no reward to money lending (i.e. interest being zero) yet capital (i.e. money's transformed version) is eligible for part of the profit earned.
3. Various modes of contract available to Islamic banks are the major source of transforming money deposits of individuals and firms into capital (or asset). Any type of financing under any modes of contract by these banks will essentially increase the value of the asset of the economy. However, some modes of contract like Musharakah and instalment sales (originated by firms) increase the productive capacity of the economy. Any positive change in the firm's asset values (rather than their capital values which is by itself a vague concept responsible for some obscurities) can be called " investment". Following this practice it is easy to calculate, rather than to estimate, the amount of investment, which has taken place in an economy during one specific year with relatively high precision. This can be done by reading the asset values off the current balance sheets, firms submit to tax authorities. By putting asset values, instead of capital, into the production function, not only it becomes more precise, but also meaningful. Firms' rate of profit is, hence, logically defined as the ratio of profit to their assets. Since the value of firms' assets is normally greater than their value of capital, therefore, the rate of profit defined as the ratio of profit to the value of capital, underestimates the true rate of profit.
4. Based upon J. M. Keynes' criticism on the classical economists inability to recognize speculative demand for money in the presence of interest (rate), it can easily be shown that interest is both necessary and sufficient condition for speculation. In other words, there is a two-way relationship between interest and speculation. It is probably for this reason that he has also recognized commodities rates of interest in addition to money rate of interest that he was much concerned about. That is, whenever a commodity is speculated upon a specific rate of interest would emerge. With the abolishment of interest, speculative motive of the demand for money, logically derived from interest, would disappear.
Speculation, which necessarily entails artificial risk in any market, be it in money, bond, gold, commodities and the like, is not permissible in an Islamic setting. All of these can safely be taken under the heading of "gambling". A corollary to the above assertion is that with the disappearance of bond market stocks are expected to be exchanged in an Islamic stock market based upon their book values. In terms of Tobin's Q this quotient is supposed to be close to unity (one). It is because in a world with perfect markets, economic value (EV) and replacement cost (RC), will coincide. This brings the quotient to unity. An implication of this is that in a world with perfect markets valuing the firm would be easy; i.e. we could read the economic value of the firm off the current balance sheet. Risk is essentially interwoven with investment. It can be considered "natural" and hence permissible in Islam. However, impermissibility of artificial risk may be grounded upon the fact that any income received by speculator will eventually bring about excess demand for goods and services (without the speculator having any share in productive activities). This excess demand, in turn, becomes the main source of inflation. Let me conclude discussing about this assertion by citing two statements correctly made by Prof. Gardner Ackley: a) "Speculation - if mistaken - tends ultimately to be self -correcting in any commodity market. " b) " ...the real cause of unemployment is speculative demand for money".
5. The natural consequence of elimination of interest, as said earlier, is the elimination of money market. Hence, the major motive to use money is for transaction purposes, which underlies the structure of ordinary demand and supply schedules for goods and services. Furthermore, based upon the logical statement that "the speculative motive is derived from money's use as an asset, as a store of value", money can no longer possess the "store of value function" in an Islamic framework. In the absence of interest, money market and speculation, and all monetary policy tools used in conventional banking, would lose their validity in Islamic banking. Let us call the policy followed in this new setting "Financial Policy". The unique and powerful tool of financial policy is to determine the share of profit relative to that of capital for all investment projects submitted to Islamic banks. This is probably the most important role a central bank can play in an Islamic banking. There are many factors underlying the determination of this share, especially in the face of natural risk. This share if effectively used would make bank's sources of finance properly channelled into asset building processes without worrying about money whirlpool to emerge. To determine equilibrium in this market the relative profit rate of the Islamic bank (call it financier) to that of the investor (call it the financee) can be constructed. This rate is especially useful in cases where different risks are involved. To prepare a list of different risks involved in various investment projects is another important task of a central bank.
6. Western economists have always and justifiably been worried about unnecessary expansion of money supply the volume of which is hard to control by central banks. This is due to the fact that considerable portion of it (very difficult to determine if not impossible due to uncertainties involved in interest rates) goes to money whirlpool. This is probably the reason Prof. Milton Friedman in his paper addressing the problem of stabilization policy has advocated the Required Reserve Ratio (RRR) to be raised to one hundred percent. It is clear that such a banking, if possible, would lose its own entity and merely becomes safe-deposit office. If Islamic banks are prohibited to lend on interest nonetheless different modes of contract, as mentioned earlier, are available to them to finance specific needs of both firms and individuals upon their proper requests. If constant and effective supervision is conducted on a random basis by the central bank the chances are very slim a money market, which could be outlawed, to be developed. So the kernel of Islamic banking is Profit and Loss Sharing (PLS). By preparing accurate information and making them available to the general public, central bank in Islamic banking system would be able to provide symmetric information and prevent moral hazard, to a great extent.
7. Money's inability to be a tradable entity and its production and volume being closely watched by the central bank (which is apart of the public sector), seems appropriate to be classified as "Impure Public Good" in an Islamic state. For the sake of brevity some properties of (impure) public goods which also applies to money, in this setting, will be outlined as follows:
a) Non-existence of money market.
b) Elimination of speculation.
c) Demand for it can be constructed by vertical summation of individual demands.
d) Externality of money can be derived from its capability of becoming actual capital; hence, government's (i.e. central bank's) intervention.
Furthermore, it benefits each person simultaneously and is thus equally available to each person. Simultaneous benefit is not a "must" for a "thing" to be public. A good example is highway. Highways do not generate simultaneous benefit to all individuals; they are equally available to all individuals. Non-exclusion principle also applies here. Additional individuals looking for money may be added at zero marginal cost. e) Indivisibility of money refers to its purchasing power and not its physical character. f) Its velocity is greater than unity implying that one is not supposed to "capture" it as opposed to the case of private good whose velocity is unity implying that it can be "captured". A caveat is in order here. Money has two distinct attributes; one at micro and the other at a macro level. At the micro level, it is part of the asset of an individual possessing it. But at macro level it cannot be added to the assets of the economy. To count money as wealth (or asset) of a nation will lead one to commit both fallacy of composition and double counting problem. This property of money may be the only one that makes it distinct from other "public goods". This could probably be the consequence of money being the medium of exchange.
To continue...
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