Joe H. Murrey

Islamic Economics: Foundations and Practices

The Islamic economic system is a theoretical construct of an economy whose members follow the Islamic faith. The core of Islamic economics rests on theological foundations – social welfare is valued above material gain and heavy emphasis is placed on a strong belief in and faithful obedience to God. The characteristics of, and principles which underlie, Islamic economics are surveyed. Particular attention is paid to the injunction against interest payments and to the requirement that the faithful pay a capital levy or wealth tax.

Target arson: Update 1991 a study of selected old and new variables

The purpose of this study is to replicate and extend earlier studies on the impact of economic and sociological variables upon the incidence of arson fires and losses. The data used in this study covered the period from 1960 to 1988. Initially, a total of 180 variables classified generally as either economic or sociological were chosen for inclusion in the study. These variables were selected based upon their inclusion in other studies in which arson is investigated or upon literature suggesting that a variable is related to arson. Fourteen variables were found to have a significant relationship with the incidence of arson fires and losses. Implications for various individuals and government agencies are discussed.

The Structure and Disciplinary Boundaries of Insurance: A Citational Analysis of JRI Articles

This paper provides a description of the nature, trends, and changing patterns of references cited in the Journal of Risk and Insurance (JRI) in three sample volumes: 1980, 1984, and 1988. Findings reveal that (1) over one-half of the references in the JRI are from noninsurance fields (primarily finance and economics), (2) journals are the most frequently cited communications media, and (3) authors of JRI articles cite it more than any other journal. An important conclusion is that insurance is a still emerging field without a strong identity or a strong bonding between the contributors to its literature. Scholars in the field of insurance often discuss and debate the structure and boundaries of their discipline. To a large extent, these introspective contributions have been of the normative-polemic type based on subjective views and casual empiricism. Participants in these discourses have shown little interest in factual evaluation of insurance source literature to ascertain the structure of the discipline and the changes that have taken place therein. In the matter of developing literature on the origins of its research, insurance is lagging behind other business disciplines. For example, the disciplines of accounting, marketing, economics, and finance have developed a research tradition based on analyses of research contributions of different authors, institutions, and forms of communication. Several citational analysis research articles have been reported in the top journals of each of these fields. This genre of articles has yielded valuable information about the structure and boundaries of the respective disciplines (see all references).