Sovereign Wealth Funds and Islamic Finance

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) and Islamic finance have become an increasingly popular subject in recent years. SWFs are state-run investment funds that most governments use to carry our purchases of foreign assets. A fundamental shift in global finance and investment power from West to East, in particular to the Middle East and other Asian countries, has thrown the SWFs and their links with Islamic finance into full glare of the world spotlight amid surge of GCC SWFs, successfully bridging the gap left by investment banks as the global crisis deepened from concerns over liquidity to solvency and to outright bank failure. We offer two tracks : Islamic finance as a new paradigm on the one hand, and as a transitional system of economic action, on the second hand. JEL Classification : F30, G29Bouchard Renaud. Sovereign Wealth Funds and Islamic Finance . In: Revue d'économie financière (English ed.). Hors-série, 2009. Sovereign wealth funds : Special Issue 2009. pp. 233-239