GLOBAL CALLS FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE: THE POTENTIAL OF ISLAMIC FINANCE
Date: Wednesday 22 February 2012
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, London School of Economics
Speakers: Mukhtar Hussain, Professor Volker Nienhaus
Chair: The Hon. Mr Justice Cranston
The workshop was made up of a group of influential Islamic legal scholars, academicians, economists, and bankers, who were welcomed by the Directors of IFP and LSE, Dr. Nazim Ali and Sir Howard Davies, respectively. The inancial crisis, which was the backdrop of the discussions, and the need to revisit risk management practices were underscored in the opening addresses. The crisis, at its core, demonstrates the dangers of “group think” and overoptimism in clouding corporate decision-making and risk reigning. In this regard, risk managers and board members of risk committees would have better served institutions as contrarians in their assessment approach. Understanding risk is key to managing risk. Undermining this key tenet was the complexity of financial instruments, which managers failed to understand. The resulting underassessment fed into misaligned models concerning the true risk interactions of various securities within portfolios, causing misleading enterprise risk measures and hedges.
The summary report is free for download
The Ninth Harvard University Forum on Islamic Finance is scheduled to be held at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts on 27-28 March, 2010.
The theme of the conference will be “Building Bridges across Financial Communities.” Papers are requested in the four following areas:
* FAITH AND FINANCE;
* SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY;
* ISLAMIC FINANCE AFTER THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS;
* CURRENT ACADEMIC RESEARCH
Candidates are requested to e-mail by 1 September 2009, in a Word document, the following to ifp@law.harvard.edu: 150-word abstract of the proposed paper, Biographical sketch up to 200 words, Single-page list of presenter’s relevant publications.