Are Muslim Attitudes Tuned For Economic Progress?

In this session, Dr. Jamshed Uppal explores how socio-religious attitudes and practices affect economic outcomes in Muslim majority countries. Drawing on World Values Survey data for 66 countries, he examines eight categories of attitudes that are conducive to economic growth, including attitude towards trust; towards government institutions; towards women; towards legal norms; towards markets; towards science; towards violence, and towards financial institutions. Through econometric techniques, he shows that religious values do significantly influence economic attitudes, with a milder degree of religiosity being growth conducive, but stronger forms of religiosity leading to growth retarding economic attitudes.

About the speaker:

Dr. Jamshed Uppal is specialized in financial management with a Ph.D. and M.B.A. in finance from Michigan State University. He has extensive professional and business experience and has taught at Oakland University before joining CUA School of Business and Economics. His teaching and research interests cover international corporate financial management, emerging capital markets, valuation, and risk models.