Journal of Iran's Economic Essays; an Islamic approach
Year:2015 | Volume:11 | Issue:22|Papers Count:7

The growing non-performing loans which are rooted in credit risk have increasingly intensified the importance of identification and resolution of this problem. Many systematic and unsystematic factors affect non-performing loans. By reviewing scientific sources, this study aims to identify these factors. As an initial step, approximately 90 factors from different sources were recognized as factors affecting the non-performing loans. After confirming and completing this list according to experts’ opinions, these factors were classified into 8 systematic and 7 unsystematic categories along with previous researches and conceptual similarity as well as banking experts’ opinions. To assess the extent of each factor’s impact on the non-performing loans and measuring inter-communication within a group the data was analyzed by using Multiple Criteria Decision Making techniques (Fuzzy TOPSIS and Fuzzy DEMATEL method).The results indicate that among other factors the following have the most significant impact on the increasing of non-performing loans: increase in inflation, devaluation of the national currency and weakness in the process of evaluation of loan application. Also factors such as political and economic risks, sanctions, rising inflation, devaluation of the national currency, the increase in parallel market efficiency, government ownership over banks and their centralization are the most central factors affecting other factors and the rest of the factors are mostly included in affected group of factors. In general, it can be concluded that the participation of systematic factors in increasing non-performing loans are more than unsystematic factors, because they are ranked higher than unsystematic factors and also these factors have been identified as factors affect other factors.

Due to the discrepancy amongst motivations of bank and the recipients of bank facilities, there is always an information asymmetry between the two parties. This brings about risks for the bank in granting facilities. There are several methods which banks can employ in order to decrease the risks involved in granting facilities. One of the methods is using the generated opportunities in the capital market, especially secondary markets, for the screening as one of the methods used for reducing and managing credit risks. Respecting religious law in granting facilities is necessary in Islamic Banking system. Due to this fact, Islamic banks can also make use of religious screening based on Islamic law (Sharia) in capital market.This paper is based on descriptive and content analysis method using library resources. It verifies the hypothesis of whether capital markets can help Islamic banking in improving the screening of the recipients of facilities as well as other economic sections. Other evident results of screening, using capital market, include reducing banks'' outstanding claims, decreasing the limitations of benefiting from facilities by individual consumers, higher accessibility of bank resources for applicants, reducing the role of collateral in granting bank facilities, reducing the risk of adverse selection, improving facilities portfolio and reducing Sharia risk in Islamic banking.

In recent years, economists have deviated from traditional rational choice models of pro-social behavior. They introduced new models which are a reflection of new findings on the hidden costs of reward and punishment. These new models are established on the bases of social preferences, conditional cooperation, and self-identity. The present paper evaluates recent theories and models of pro-social behavior and tries to advance relevant theories and models from an Islamic point of view. By introducing material and spiritual motives for pro-social behavior, the paper suggests that material incentives could deactivate spiritual motives by creating doubt about social responsibility of potential altruists about the necessity of benevolence. The results of a case study about the effect of incentives on kidney donation in Iran support the proposed explanation. This approach is compatible with Islamic approaches concerning separation between the spiritual and material incentives and their simultaneous stimulation in Islamic law and orders.

In regard to the customers who are willing to participate in stock market and insurance market simultaneously, insurance companies introduced equity linked insurance contracts. Equity linked life insurance contracts is a life insurance policy, in which all or some part of premium allocated to a separate account that will be invested in a particular stock or a portfolio. If the portfolio has a positive return, the death benefit increases and if yields are bad, death benefits should be reduced, naturally. In this paper the feasibility of providing equity linked insurance in Iran''s insurance market is investigated. For this purpose, analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is used by TELOS method. According to experts, equity linked life insurance is feasible and Guaranteed Minimum Maturity Benefit ( GMMB ) is the most preferable product in equity linked life insurance.

Health is the most valuable material property of human and the health sector is one of the most important sectors in community. Therefore, justice is the key issue in economics in general and emphatic in Islamic economics. According to an approach concerning equity in health sector, justice occurs when socio-economic factors do not expose people with impoverishing costs. In this paper, based on a large volumes of data between the years 2007 to 2011, we evaluate the impact of household socio-economic status on the probability of facing with impoverishing health expenditure using Ordered Logit Technique and the STATA software. This probability decreases with the factors such as: the employment of household head, homeownership, the most educated people in the family, more per capita area of residence, family being in high income deciles and insurance coverage and increases with a growth in household size and living in more developed provinces. The poor effects of insurance coverage and its impact on the probability of households facing impoverishing health expenditure indicate its inefficiency. The probability of households facing impoverishing health expenditure has increased from 2007 to 2010 yearly, but in 2011, as Iranian targeted subsidy plan was implemented, this probability has not been significant. This should be due to the immediate and short-run influences of subsidy plan and determining its medium term and long-run effects requires further studies in the future. In this paper, with a large volume of data, it was tried to explain this problem by means of investigating the effect of new variables and the impact of implementation of government policies and subsidies plan.

Investigating benevolent and godly economic behaviors and the factors influencing these types of God''s sake behaviors is one of the needs of economic policy making in each society in order to develop them. In this paper, we attempt to assess the impacts of Infāq (giving or disbursing in charity to please God without asking for any favor or hoping for a return) and financial markets (as substitute or complementary), income, age, institutions and religious capital (as supporting factors) and real estate market (as prohibitive factors for benevolent God''s sake behaviors) on Iran''s Gharz Al-hassane market. To do that, we apply an econometric panel data technique using provincial data during 2004 to 2012. The main result of this paper implies that financial markets play a facilitating role for economic activities in various economic sectors, as well as, they have the same impact on Gharz Al-hassane market and help to the expedition of its development. The results also show that on one hand Infagh couldn’t be considered as a substitute for Gharz Al-hassane or loan. On the other hand, age, institutions and religious capital have positive impacts on the development of Gharz Al-hassane and real estate market inflation has negative impact as well.

Religion as system of values and norms can have a profound impact on human social life. Regarding that religious beliefs and attitudes are encouraging of social cooperation and collaboration; religious peoples’ behaviors are expected to be more social. Since religion as set of values, beliefs and norms has special program and education system, it is likely to support community participation. This research was focused on this question that whether experimental observations verify the positive impact of religion on behavior. It has implemented a repetitive 5 stage Public Good Game with measuring religiosity of players. It was to examine the relationship between religion and cooperation behavior. The backward regression results show that religious people with higher scores of morality have more participation in the first stage of production of public goods. Changes in the Index of morality could explain 25% of the variation in the cooperative decision makings after the controlling of personality and demographic variables. High scores on neurosis index was an effective element for reducing participation in the next steps of the game. Individual positive reactions to community participation and the increase in the explanatory power of reactive variables at each step of the game and neutralizing the religious, psychological, and the demographic variables are other conclusions of this investigation. These results support the impact of the subtitle indices of religiosity on economic behavior.