IE Business School is spearheading education in Islamic finance and business and has the aspiration of becoming the Islamic finance education hub in Europe. The inauguration ceremony of the Saudi-Spanish Center for Islamic Economics and Finance was hosted at IE Business School in December 2011 where we welcomed Dr. Ahmad M. Ali, President of the Islamic Development Bank, Saudi Arabia. He argued that Spain was chosen as a partner country by the Islamic community due to its strong historical links, acting as a bridge between western and middle-eastern societies.

U.S. policymakers continue their discussion about whether to raise America's debt ceiling above its current level of $14.3 trillion. Standard & Poor's has observed that any failure to raise the debt ceiling would cause significant and long-lasting financial and economic disruptions. In this CreditMatters TV interview, Paul Coughlin, Standard & Poor's executive managing director, discusses our views on the potential impact on the U.S. economy and the financial markets if the debt cap issue is not resolved in a timely manner.

Since March 28th, 2011, Standard & Poor's has downgraded, by several notches, the five Portuguese banks that they rate to 'BBB-'. S&P has also lowered the short-term ratings to 'A-3'. The outlooks on four of the five banks are negative. One bank still remains on CreditWatch negative. What prompted their rating actions on the banks? In this podcast, Director Elena Iparraguirre explains their rationale, why they feel sovereign risk and banks' ratings are so tighthly correlated, and their main expectations for the Portuguese financial system.

ESRI pone a disposición de sus usuarios el Volumen 3 de su ya famosa colección Ensayos sobre Geografía y SIG, una selección de los mejores ocho artículos y ensayos sobre Sistemas de Información Geográfica escritos por los mayores gurús en la materia.

While it is impossible to directly access spot volatility, futures and futures-based indices can provide broad access to what has been dubbed the "investor fear gauge". The term structure of volatility has a profound impact on index characteristics and is key to efficient usage of these instruments.

Almost all structured finance transactions depend on counterparties to help them meet their payment obligations. In the past few years, major financial institutions that served as counterparties in a number of securitizations became insolvent. These experiences, along with the evolving characteristics of the world's financial system, have led to a reassessment of counterparty risk by market participants. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Andrew South, Standard & Poor's Head of European Structured Finance Research, discusses some of the risks, drawing on recent case studies.

A special report on the world economy lays out the options for avoiding a decade-long slump.