Rationality of the Capital Market: Capitalistic System vs. Islamic System Md. Mahmudul Alam* School of Economics, Finance & Banking (SEFB) College of Business (COB) Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) 06010 UUM Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia E-mail:
[email protected] Tel: +601-82467050 Chowdhury Shahed Akbar Southeast Bank Limited Eunoos Trade Center 51-52 Dilkusha C/A, Dhaka, Bangla-desh Email:
[email protected] * Corresponding Author Citation Reference: Alam, M.M., Akbar, C.S. 2015. Rationality of the Capital Market: Capitalistic System vs. Islamic System, International Journal of Behavioural Accounting and Finance. Vol. 5(3-4), pp. 279-297. [Online Link] This is a pre-publication copy. The published article is copyrighted by the publisher of the journal. 1 Rationality of the Capital Market: Capitalistic System vs. Islamic System Abstract Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is founded on the theory of expected rationality but the theory of behavioural finance concludes that stock market investors are quasi-rational. Therefore, under the capitalistic system, the efficient markets have already failed to protect the rights of investors that have led to chronic capital market crashes and failure to achieve efficiency, justice, fairness, accountability, fair distribution of benefits, and a rational behaviour among investors. However, recently, Islamic financial institutions and markets have been emerging, which stand on the Shariah provision – the guided way to behave rationally or guided rationality. Based on the empirical experiences and evidences of both market systems, this paper discusses and compares the performances of the markets under the theoretical arguments of “rationality”, “quasi-rationality”, and “guided rationality”. This paper suggests that capital market based on guided rationality under the Islamic System can be a better alternative over the conventional market system.