Explaining the role of formal and informal contract enforcement mechanisms in distinguishing Islamic and conventional financial systems

Most studies believe that using alternative contracts distinguishes between Islamic and conventional financial systems. This study, confirming the importance of this factor, focuses on the role of two other important distinguishing factors: customer preferences and supporting legal and judicial systems, as factors related to institutional environment of the financial system and effective, respectively, on its informal and formal contract enforcement mechanisms. Using game theory approach, assuming customer's different preferences and contract enforcement incompleteness, this paper models explain the role of different contract enforcement regimes and customer endogenous and dynamic preferences on the performance of financial systems. Also, using global game approach, a theoretical explanation for the occurrence of financial crises relying on the borrower runs resulting from the role of judicial system on enforcing contracts and the customer preferences has been presented. This study theoretically helps understanding the institutional roots of differences in the financial systems, specially the complementary role of Islamic educational, legal and judicial systems for the Islamic financial system.