Islamic finance and economics as reflected in research and publications

In the last few decades, both academic institutions and corporate entities
have become increasingly involved in conducting and validating research in Islamic Finance and Economics (IFE). As a result, there are now a multitude of sources to disseminate information. Until the 1900s, scholarly papers were only published in secular, conventional economics and finance journals. A cursory look at the IFP DataBank shows that more then 2500 articles represented in the database are distributed among some 400 different journals. Academic institutions are the primary centres for research in IFE, offering postgraduate programmes and comprising the majority of researchers present in each region. The applied research in Islamic finance is conducted mostly within the industry as part of their R&D, and involves specific inquiry into practical problems that are encountered by Islamic financial institutions (such as product innovation). As part of industry-building efforts, the Islamic Finance industry also plays a crucial role in establishing as well as supporting external ventures such as AOIIFI, IFSB, GCIFIB with the view to streamline and tackle some of the industry-wide problems and issues relating to global standardization, governance, regulation as well as compilation of industry data.