Islam prohibits a behavior that is in conflict of one’s responsibilities. Here is an Aya from Quran and commentary. The Aya and commentary is very relevant to the subject under discussion.
And do not eat up your property among yourselves for vanities nor use it as bait for the judges with intent that ye may eat up wrongfully and knowingly a little of (other) people's property. Aya 188 of Sura Al-Baqara
Besides the three primal physical needs of man, which are apt to make him greedy, there is a fourth greed in society, the greed of wealth and property. The purpose of fasts is not completed until this fourth greed is also restrained.
Ordinarily honest men are content if they refrain from robbery, theft, or embezzlement. Two more subtle forms of the greed are mentioned here. One is where one uses one's own property for corrupting others - judges or those in authority - so as to obtain some material gain even under the cover and protection of the law.
The words translated "other people's property may also mean "public property". A still more subtle form is where we use our own property or property under our own control - "among yourselves" in the Text - for vain or frivolous uses. Under the Islamic standard this is also greed. Property carries with it its own responsibilities. If we fail to understand or fulfil them, we have not learnt the full lesson of self-denial by fasts. Commentary By Abdullah Yusuf Ali
Academicians are the forerunners of practitioners. They observe a certain phenomena and try their best to explain it so that behaviors of practitioners can be moulded accordingly for the benefit of public at large. Rules and regulations are the outcome of such observations, empirical analyses, academic debate etc.
In the wake of current financial crisis, there is a need for an unbiased analyses by the academia so that causes for such crises in the future can be controlled. But unfortunately there are some grey areas that need to be addressed like biasness for example. There are growing reports that academia was involved in the financial meltdown.
Here is an excerpt from an article
Over the last thirty years, academic economics has been penetrated by special interests, particularly financial services, in the same way that America’s political and regulatory systems have been compromised by campaign contributions and the revolving door. In fact, the “revolving door” is now a triangular trip between industry, government, and academia.
Prominent economists are now routinely paid to testify in antitrust cases, criminal trials, and regulatory proceedings; to testify in Congress; to give speeches to the industries and firms they study; to serve on boards of directors and as advisors; and to write supposedly objective analyses of industries, companies and policies. These payments and the conflicts of interest they generate are rarely disclosed, except when required by Federal law.
These activities are not marginal; they are now, literally, a billion dollar industry, managed by firms such as the Law and Economics Consulting Group (LECG), The Analysis Group, Compass Lexecon, Charles River Associates, and others. Professors’ income from such groups often dwarfs their academic salaries. That neither universities nor most publications require such disclosure was one of the most shocking facts I learned while making Inside Job, my documentary on the financial crisis.
More recently, American Economic Association has recognized this moral hazard and has announced to adopt a code of ethical standards for its members. Following is an excerpt from The New York Times article on the subject.
Academic economists, particularly those active in policy debates in Washington and Wall Street, are facing greater scrutiny of their outside activities these days. Faced with a run of criticism, including a popular movie, leaders of the American Economic Association, the world’s largest professional society for economists, founded in 1885, are considering a step that most other professions took a long time ago — adopting a code of ethical standards.
The proposal, which has not been announced to the public or to the association’s 17,000 members, is partly a response to “Inside Job,” a documentary film released in October that excoriates leading academic economists for their ties to Wall Street as consultants, advisers or corporate directors.
Here is another excerpt from an article
In October, Gerald Epstein and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth released a paper documenting potential conflicts of interests among academic economists writing about the financial crisis and financial reform. Focusing on the Squam Lake Working Group on Financial Regulation and the Pew Economic Policy Group Financial Reform Project, they found that a majority of the economists involved had affiliations with private financial institutions, yet few of them disclosed those affiliations even in academic publications (where they do not face the word constraints imposed by print newspaper editors), preferring to identify themselves by their universities and as members of prestigious institutions such as NBER. To be fair, they did not find a strong relationship between economists’ affiliations and their positions on financial reform, perhaps because of the small sample and the limited amount of variation in the positions of members of these groups.
Following is an excerpt from a letter written by Epstein and Carrick-Hagenbarth to the president of the AEA asking for the adoption of a code that requires economists to avoid conflicts of interest and to disclose ties that could create the appearance of a conflict of interest.
More specifically we propose that the AEA adopt a code modeled on that of the American Sociological Association. This code could state that: “Economists should maintain the highest degree of integrity in their professional work and avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflict. Moreover, economists should disclose relevant sources of financial support and relevant personal or professional relationships that may have the appearance or potential for a conflict of interest in public speeches and writing, as well as in academic publications.”
This issue has taken on greater salience as the recent financial crisis has highlighted economists’ potentially conflicting roles that may have affected their real or perceived impartiality as analysts and experts. For example, in an assessment of 19 economists who have played prominent and influential roles in recent public policy debates, Gerald Epstein and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth found that 13 out of 19 economists had private financial affiliations indicative of some possible conflicts of interest, but only 5 had clearly and publicly revealed their affiliations. A Reuters study of Congressional testimony by academics (many but not all of whom are economists) analyzed “… 96 testimonies given by 82 academics to the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee between late 2008 and early 2010 — as lawmakers debated the biggest overhaul of financial regulation since the 1930s.” They found that “…roughly a third (of the academics) did not reveal their financial affiliations in their testimonies, based on a comparison of the text of their testimonies available on the Congressional committees’ websites with their resumes available online.”
From reading all the above reports, one can easily get that there is something wrong and under the existing arrangement of academia and financial industry, it is hard to accept that they will come up with some un biased analyses and reforms that are in the interest of the public at large. Unless and until the profession does not enforce transparency and code of ethical standards, ill advised policy is a real danger.
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