The 2008 financial crisis has severely shaken confidence in liberal economic theory and policy. However, the sharply divergent experiences of the six Anglo-Saxon 'liberal market economies' (LMEs) suggest that the reality is not so simple. This book traces the evolution of liberal capitalism, from its rebirth amidst the challenges of the 1970s to its role in the genesis of the 2008 crisis - and debates the assumptions underpinning the liberal capitalist paradigm. Close examination reveals variety within liberal capitalism. Not only was there the familiar, "hands off" libertarian approach adopted by the US, UK and Ireland, but more bounded, better regulated and apparently more stable varieties of economic liberalism also emerged, through the more pragmatic approach taken by Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The evidence is compelling. Whereas the American, British and Irish financial systems were severely damaged by the crisis, those of Canada, Australia and New Zealand proved more robust. This volume explores the degree to which these divergent experiences were a result of better and more intensive supervision, differences in business or political culture, broader commitment to social norms, and the pace of liberalisation. Detailed comparative case studies reveal fundamental differences in the economic and political environments in which economic liberalisation took place, in approaches to finance and in the degree to which it was seen to be an engine for growth. The book concludes that this had a major influence on the evolving economic and financial systems, and consequently, their relative resilience when confronted with the challenges of the 2008 crisis.

Since 2000, the Gulf Coast states - Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida - have experienced a series of hurricanes, multiple floods and severe storms, and one oil spill. These disasters have not only been numerous but also devastating. Response to and recovery from these unprecedented disasters has been fraught with missteps in management. In efforts to avoid similar failures in the future, government agencies and policy practitioners have looked to recast emergency management, and community resilience has emerged as a way for to better prevent, manage, and recover from these disasters. How is disaster resilience perceived by local government officials and translated into their disaster response and recovery efforts? Ashley D. Ross systematically explores and measures disaster resilience across the Gulf Coast to gain a better understanding of how resilience in concept is translated into disaster management practices, particularly on the local government level. In doing so, she presents disaster resilience theory to the Gulf Coast using existing data to create county-level baseline indicators of Gulf Coast disaster resilience and an original survey of county emergency managers and elected municipal officials in 60 counties and 120 municipalities across the Gulf States. The findings of the original survey measure the disaster resilience perceptions held by local government officials, which are examined to identify commonalities and differences across the set of cases. Additional analyses compare these perceptions to objective baseline indicators of disaster resilience to assess how perceptions align with resilience realities. Local Disaster Resilience not only fills a critical gap in the literature by applying existing theories and models to a region that has experienced the worst disasters the United States has faced in the past decade, but it can also be used as a tool to advance our knowledge of disasters in an interdisciplinary manner.

China's shadow banking has been a top issue in the past few years. Scholars, policymakers, and professionals around the world are seeking deeper insight into the subject, and the authors had unique insight into the sector through their positions high up in the regulatory apparatus. "Regulating China's Shadow Banks" focuses on the regulation of shadow banks in China and provides crucial information to demystify China's shadow banking and associated regulatory challenges. This book defines "shadow banking" in the Chinese context, analyzes the impact of shadow banking on the Chinese economy, includes a full-scale analysis on the current status of Chinese financial regulation, and provides valuable advice on the regulation of China's shadow banks.

Recent failures and rescues of large banks have resulted in colossal costs to society. In wake of such turmoil a new banking union must enable better supervision, pre-emptive coordinated action and taxpayer protection. While these aims are meritorious they will be difficult to achieve. This book explores the potential of a new banking union in Europe. This book brings together leading experts to analyse the challenges of banking in the European Union. While not all contributors agree, the constructive criticism provided in this book will help ensure that a new banking union will mature into a stable yet vibrant financial system that encourages the growth of economic activity and the efficient allocation of resources. This book will be of use to researchers interested in Banking, Monetary Economics and the European Union.

An advanced method for financial institutions to optimize Asset Liability Management for maximized return and minimized risk Financial institutions today are facing daunting regulatory and economic challenges. As they manage bank regulation and competition, institutions are also optimizing their Asset Liability Management (ALM) operations. The function of the ALM unit today goes beyond risk management related to the banking book into managing regulatory capital and positioning the balance sheet to maximize profit. Asset Liability Management Optimization: A Practitioner's Guide to Balance Sheet Management and Remodelling offers a step-by-step process for modeling and reshaping a bank's balance sheet. Based on the author's extensive research, it describes how to apply a quantifiable optimization method to help maximize asset return and minimize funding cost in the banking book. ALM ranks as a key component of any financial institution's overall operating strategy. Now, financial professionals can use an advanced solution for optimizing ALM. This book takes a closer look at the evolving role of the ALM function and the target position of the banking book. It provides strategies for active management, structuring, and hedging of a bank balance sheet, while also exploring additional topics related to ALM. A description of the Funds Transfer Pricing (FTP) process related to a bank's target position Detailed examinations of interest rate risk in the banking book (IRRBB) Discussion of Basel III regulatory requirements and maturity gap analysis Overview of customer behavior, along with its impact on interest rate and liquidity risk Practical spreadsheet models (NII sensitivity and EVE volatility IRRBB model, simplified optimization model for minimization of average funding cost for a bank and an example of behavioral model for Non-Maturing Deposits) Explorations of model risk, sensitivity analysis, and case studies The optimization techniques found in Asset Liability Management Optimization can prove vital to financial professionals who are tasked with maximizing asset return and reducing funding costs as a critical part of business objectives.

In the collective psyche, a financier is a capitalist. In managerial capitalism, the notion of the 'manager' emerged, and the role of the manager was distinct from the role of the 'owner'. Financial capitalism is similarly underpinned by financiers who are not the holders of the financial assets they buy, sell, trade or advise upon. Finance at Work explores the world of financiers, be they finance-oriented CEOs, CFOs, financial journalists, mergers and acquisitions' advisors or wealth managers. Part I investigates the professional trajectories of members of corporate boards and financialisation as the dissemination of financial logic outside its primary 'iron cage'; Part II responds by studying financiers at work within financial occupations or financial operations involving external actors; while Part III pursues the issue of financial boundaries by seeking out the way financial logic crosses these boundaries. Part IV takes back the hypothesis of differentiations within finance presented in Part I, and analyses the internal boundaries of asset management, wealth management and leveraged buyout (LBO) acquisitions. This book is essential reading for researchers and academics within the field of finance who aim to understand the 'spread of finance' in contemporary societies.

We are only in the early stages of a broader revolution that will impact every aspect of the global economy, including commerce and government services. Coming financial technology innovations could improve the quality of life for all people. Over the past few decades, digital technology has transformed finance. Financial technology (fintech) has enabled more people with fewer resources, in more places around the world, to take advantage of banking, insurance, credit, investment, and other financial services. Marion Laboure and Nicolas Deffrennes argue that these changes are only the tip of the iceberg. A much broader revolution is under way that, if steered correctly, will lead to huge and beneficial social change. The authors describe the genesis of recent financial innovations and how they have helped consumers in rich and poor countries alike by reducing costs, increasing accessibility, and improving convenience and efficiency. They connect the dots between early innovations in financial services and the wider revolution unfolding today. Changes may disrupt traditional financial services, especially banking, but they may also help us address major social challenges: opening new career paths for millennials, transforming government services, and expanding the gig economy in developed markets. Fintech could lead to economic infrastructure developments in rural areas and could facilitate emerging social security and healthcare systems in developing countries. The authors make this case with a rich combination of economic theory and case studies, including microanalyses of the effects of fintech innovations on individuals, as well as macroeconomic perspectives on fintech's impact on societies. While celebrating fintech's achievements to date, Laboure and Deffrennes also make recommendations for overcoming the obstacles that remain. The stakes-improved quality of life for all people-could not be higher.

With original archival documents and interviews from the US and Europe, Michelle Frasher brings the reader into the negotiating room with American, German, and French officials as they confronted the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system and made decisions that affected the course of European integration and the contemporary neoliberal order. She identifies crisis as the catalyst for change in international monetary policies, but argues that the causes of crisis originated from a multitude of factors such as market speculation, American hegemony, institutional flaws, and ideational conflicts among the leaders themselves. Far from a planned and consensual process, this book shows that the transformation to neoliberalism was riddled with discord and fret with trial and error. She argues that the resulting currency regime allowed governments to entrench themselves in national interests and facilitated the "marketization" of the state, where states have became both clients and participants in the financialized global economy-to the detriment of international stability. Frasher's is the first work to connect the 1960s and 1970s to the difficulties of inter-state and inter-market cooperation that have plagued the system in the last decades, and it puts the 2008 debacle into historical perspective.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), founded in 1930, works as the "Bank for Central Banks". The BIS is an international forum where central bankers and officials gather to cope with international financial issues, and a bank which invests the funds of the member countries. This book is a historical study on the BIS, from its foundation to the 1970s. Using archival sources of the Bank and financial institutions of the member countries, this book aims to clarify how the BIS faced the challenges of contemporary international financial system. The book deals with following subjects: Why and how the BIS has been founded? How did the BIS cope with the Great Depression in the 1930s? Was the BIS responsible for the looted gold incident during WWII? After the dissolution sentence at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, how did the BIS survive? How did the BIS act during the dollar crisis in the 1960s and the 1970s? A thorough analysis of the balance sheets supports the archival investigation on the above issues. The BIS has been, and is still an institution which proposes an "alternative views": crisis manager under the Great Depression of the 1930s, peace feeler during the WWII, market friendly bank in the golden age of the Keynesian interventionism, and crisis fighter during the recent world financial turmoil. Harmonizing the methodology of economic history, international finances and history of economic thoughts, the book traces the past events to the current world economy under financial crisis.

The concept of the origin of money has been a topic of interest and discussion to almost all schools of economic thought. However, in spite of minor differences of interpretation, most views share an underlying core principal about the rise and origin of money, implicit in which is the central belief that barter exchange preceded the money economy. This new book offers a challenge to this belief, and argues that it is only by making this challenge that we will be in the position to accurately trace the roots of money. In an ambitious undertaking, the book has gathered and classified the major theories of the origin of money and assessed each at length, before presenting an innovative, alternative theoretical framework for the formation and the rise of money. It blends the objections made against the principal explanations of the origins of money and presents a terminological clarification between what can or cannot be classified as money. This study has wide-ranging implications, in terms of both the operation of the economy and the implementation of monetary policy, and will be of interest to all those working in the areas of finance, monetary economics, economic theory and the history of economic thought.

"Captivating . . . [Lowenstein] makes what subsequently occurred at Treasury and on Wall Street during the early 1860s seem as enthralling as what transpired on the battlefield or at the White House." -Harold Holzer, Wall Street Journal "Ways and Means, an account of the Union's financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives . . . Lowenstein is a lucid stylist, able to explain financial matters to readers who lack specialized knowledge." -Eric Foner, New York Times Book Review From renowned journalist and master storyteller Roger Lowenstein, a revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country's history Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis. Even before the Confederacy's secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money. The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency. But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity-the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the "more perfect union" that had first drawn him to politics. With Lincoln at the helm, the United States would now govern "for" its people: it would enact laws, establish a currency, raise armies, underwrite transportation and higher education, assist farmers, and impose taxes for them. Lincoln believed this agenda would foster the economic opportunity he had always sought for upwardly striving Americans, and which he would seek in particular for enslaved Black Americans. Salmon Chase, Lincoln's vanquished rival and his new secretary of the Treasury, waged war on the financial front, levying taxes and marketing bonds while desperately battling to contain wartime inflation. And while the Union and Rebel armies fought increasingly savage battles, the Republican-led Congress enacted a blizzard of legislation that made the government, for the first time, a powerful presence in the lives of ordinary Americans. The impact was revolutionary. The activist 37th Congress legislated for homesteads and a transcontinental railroad and involved the federal government in education, agriculture, and eventually immigration policy. It established a progressive income tax and created the greenback-paper money. While the Union became self-sustaining, the South plunged into financial free fall, having failed to leverage its cotton wealth to finance the war. Founded in a crucible of anticentralism, the Confederacy was trapped in a static (and slave-based) agrarian economy without federal taxing power or other means of government financing, save for its overworked printing presses. This led to an epic collapse. Though Confederate troops continued to hold their own, the North's financial advantage over the South, where citizens increasingly went hungry, proved decisive; the war was won as much (or more) in the respective treasuries as on the battlefields. Roger Lowenstein reveals the largely untold story of how Lincoln used the urgency of the Civil War to transform a union of states into a nation. Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and a Congress studded with towering statesmen, changed the direction of the country and established a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Banking, Politics and Global Finance presents an innovative, micro-political examination of the US banking system's response to the ongoing globalization of financial markets. This approach contrasts sharply with earlier studies which have emphasized the macro-structural aspects of politics through concentrating on elements of stability and consistency in the policy responses by advanced industrial countries to external economic pressures. By micro-political analysis of policy making, this book reveals a multitude of changes in the interests, coalitions and power constellations among private and public sector actors and institutions in the US financial system, in the absence of any macrostructural adjustment. These changes have opened alternative channels for policy making leading to substantial adjustments in the regulatory framework governing US financial markets. Using detailed discussion of the unsuccessful attempts to repeal the law that separates commercial from investment banking - the Glass-Steagall Act - and the successful raising of the capital standards of US commercial banks, Dr Reinicke's book also explains why the same policy network can respond very differently to an external economic challenge - a phenomenon usually neglected in the literature on comparative political economy.

Central bank independence is a key issue for political and monetary authorities in many countries. In Institutions and Monetary Policy, Eric Schaling looks at the impact of different central banks on price stability and macroeconomic performance, and their optimal degree of legislative independence.After introducing and surveying the rules versus discretion debate in monetary policy, Eric Schaling then investigates the relationship between domestic monetary institutions and macroeconomic performance. The author compares central bank independence in twelve industrial countries - Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden and Switzerland - and prepares an index of his results. The relationship between central bank independence, inflation and output growth is extensively discussed and a series of propositions tested for the same set of countries over the period from 1972 to 1991. Normative issues are investigated in the later part of the book including the optimal degree of central bank independence in relation to, first, the inflation rate and, second, wage formation in a totally unionized economy. Institutions and Monetary Policy will be welcomed by scholars and policymakers concerned with the increasingly important role of institutions in monetary policy and the relation between degrees of central bank independence and political and economic outcomes.

The financial crash of 2008 showed the fragility of the financial system. A key question which surfaced in the aftermath of the global crisis was why economists were unable to predict this crash. This new volume argues that this failure can be attributed, at least in part, to the poor and inconsistent treatment of money and monetary matters in economic theory. The book takes this problem as its starting point, and from there aims to develop a more consistent treatment of the topic. Here, Hasse Ekstedt affirms that the treatment of money in economic theory has been inconsistent and that the topic of money can in fact be seen as anomalous. He argues that this anomaly depends on deficiencies in the economic theory, which through an equilibrium approach mainly perceives money as an index of measurement. In contrast, this volume puts forward the case for money as a non-equilibrium concept, and that the stability of money and financial markets are to be sought in social and institutional structures. In particular, the volume discusses the relationship between the market and public bodies, as well as addressing economic and financial stability in general and in relation to the globalized economy, particularly focussing on the problem of structural stability. In doing so, the book offers a new approach both to money and to its role in economic theory.

The globalisation of the present day world economy means that more and more people are experiencing different cultures through their work. Focusing on the real experiences of workers in Japanese transnational finance companies, this book not only throws light on this specific case, but at the same time raises timely questions and insights into the newly-emerging multicultural work experience worldwide. Japanese Bankers in the City of London reflects on contemporary discussions in sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, of individual global movement and cultural interaction.

While there is a vast amount of literature examining firm's networks from an industrial organization perspective, the financial implications of networking remain underexplored. This book fills this gap, by investigating the phenomenon of business networks in the context of management and governance processes, and the related effects on interactions with the financial system in general, and credit institutions in particular. Networking is examined both from the demand (firms) and supply (banking institutions) perspective, thus, the book offers several contributions. It outlines the critical issues connected to business aggregations from the point of view of the management of information flows, and addresses the problem of identifying the role of banking ecosystems, in light of the transformations taking place in the financial industry, considering the growing complementarity between bank and market instruments in corporate financing. It explores the problem of identifying rating models for business networks, as well as, for individual participants on a stand-alone basis. Further, the book analyses a sample of networks in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and profiles a number of specific business cases. The book will be of particular interest to researchers and scholars in the field of banking and finance but also entrepreneurship and small business management. It will also find an audience among scholars from a wide array of additional fields, working on the relationship between financing concerns and growth opportunities.

Since 2008, the financial sector has been the subject of extensive criticism. Much of this criticism has focused on the morality of the actors involved in the crisis and its extended aftermath. This book analyses the key moral and political philosophical issues of the crisis and relates them to the political economy of finance. It also examines to what extent the financial sector can or should be reformed. This book is unified by the view that the financial sector had been a self-serving and self-regulating elite consumed by greed, speculation and even lawlessness, with little sense of responsibility to the wider society or common good. In light of critical analysis by authors from a variety of backgrounds and persuasions, suggestions for reform and improvement are proposed, in some cases radical reform. By placing the world of finance under a microscope, this book analyses the assumptions that have led from hubris to disgrace as it provides suggestions for an improved society. Rooted in philosophical reflection, this book invites a critical reassessment of finance and its societal role in the 21st century. This book will be of interest to academics, politicians, central bankers and financial regulators who wish to improve the morality of finance.

Talent management is a way banks acquire competitive advantage. Practices such as personality profiling with effective knowledge-based productivity and the application of high-performance work systems help to set a company apart from its competition and maintain this competitive advantage. This book provides an in-depth look at the relationship between personality types and individual-level performance in knowledge-based environments, through cases in Australia's banking and finance sector. This book also examines how high-performance workplace systems influence individual performance in relation to productivity through a multi-level analysis of micro- and meso-level factors. The findings in this book have relevant implications not only for the Australian system but also for other banking and financial service contexts outside of Australia.

This is a comprehensive biography of Clarence Charles Hatry, 1888-1965, an enigmatic and charismatic public figure. Hatry was the son of Jewish immigrant parents who became a company promoter and whose companies collapsed in 1929, leading to a crash on the London stock exchange. He was brought down by a desperate fraud. At his trial three months later, the judge said that he could not imagine a worse crime. Analysing transactions in detail, the book reveals Hatry's brilliance as a manipulator and a world-class networker and persuader. It also demonstrates his vain belief in his ability to overcome any risks and his insecurity which led him to surround himself with sycophants who would not challenge his ideas. It shows how others used Hatry to make money, and, as he destroyed himself, as a scapegoat who distracted from the City's failings. Despite his deepest ambitions, he remained an outsider. Until now there has been no full biography of Clarence Hatry, which may be attributable to the lack of records, as his business papers are believed all to have been destroyed. This comprehensive biography is based on examination of the memoirs of Hatry's contemporaries, the archives and records which they and their companies preserved, and press reports of Hatry's activities. Marking the 90th anniversary of Hatry's collapse, this book will be important reading for academics and researchers looking to gain a greater understanding of the context of the 1929 crash, or of financial crises generally.

The crisis of the current global financial order is challenging us to critically reflect on how this order has been driven, and the development outcomes produced by its central political and economic actors. There is a great deal of academic knowledge about the role of the international financial institutions, powerful states and capital markets in international development, but there is little understanding of how regional dynamics and regional institutions influence global governance and developing countries. This book offers an independent and grounded investigation concerning the political economic role of Regional Development Banks through a study of the world's leading regional development bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The book examines the political economy of the IDB and its role in regional and national development during the neoliberalisation processes of the 1990s. In particular, the investigations explore the IDB's power in regional and national development - via its technical, political and financial interventions - to frame policy alternatives, absorb opposition forces, support specific coalition forces and justify a particular direction of development, all in order to legitimize specific political economic projects directed by market-led pro-reform coalitions aligned with global financial forces and financial development guidelines. This book will be relevant to scholars and professionals interested in the international and regional political economy of development financing.

This book seeks to explain the global financial crisis and its wider economic, political, and social repercussions, arguing that the 2007-9 meltdown was in fact a systemic crisis of the capitalist system. The volume makes these points through the exploration of several key questions: What kind of institutional political economy is appropriate to explain crisis periods and failures of crisis-management? Are different varieties of capitalism more or less crisis-prone, and can the global financial crisis can be attributed to one variety more than others? What is the interaction between the labour market and the financialization process? The book argues that each variety of capitalism has its own specific crisis tendencies, and that the uneven global character of the crisis is related to the current forms of integration of the world market. More specifically, the 2007-09 economic crisis is rooted in the uneven income distribution and inequality caused by the current financial-led model of growth. The book explains how the introduction of more flexibility in the labour markets and financial deregulation affected everything from wages to job security to trade union influence. Uneven income distribution and inequality weakened aggregate demand and brought about structural deficiencies in aggregate demand and supply. It is argued that the process of financialization has profoundly changed how capitalist economies operate. The volume posits that financial globalization has given rise to growing international imbalances, which have allowed two growth models to emerge: a debt-led consumption growth model and an export-led growth model. Both should be understood as reactions to the lack of effective demand due to the polarization of income distribution.

The financial crisis that started in 2007 is a concern for the world. Some countries are in depression and governments are desperately trying to find solutions. In the absence of thorough debate on the emotions of money, bitter disputes, hatred and 'moralizing' can be misunderstood. New Perspectives on Emotions in Finance carefully considers emotions often left unacknowledged, in order to explain the socially useful versus de-civilising, destructive, nature of money. This book offers an understanding of money that includes the possible civilising sentiments. This interdisciplinary volume examines what is seemingly an uncontrollable, fragile world of finance and explains the 'panics' of traders and 'immoral panics' in banking, 'confidence' of government and commercial decision makers, 'shame' or 'cynicism' of investors and asymmetries of 'impersonal trust' between finance corporations and their many publics. Money is shown to rely on this abstract trust or 'faith', but such motivations are in crisis with 'angry' conflicts over the 'power of disposition'. Restraining influences - on 'uncivilised emotions' and rule breaking - need democratic consensus, due to enduring national differences in economic 'sentiments' even in ostensibly similar countries. Promising ideas for global reform are assessed from these cautionary interpretations. Instead of one 'correct' vision, sociologists in this book argue that corporations and global dependencies are driven by fears and normless sentiments which foster betrayal. This book is not about individuals, but habitus and market crudities. Human 'nature' or 'greed' cannot describe banks, which do not 'feel' because their motivations are not from personal psyches but organisational pressures, and are liable to switch under money's inevitable uncertainties. This more inclusive social science studies emotions as a crucial factor among others, to expand the informed public debate among policy makers, bankers, academics, students and the public.

The aim of this work is to make available to English-language readers a translation of Jean-Baptiste Say's main texts on money and banking which were not at present accessible in English. The work includes chapters from his books taking into account the variants between the different editions, articles and hitherto unpublished manuscripts. Comprehension of these different texts is facilitated by an introduction designed to place them in their context and by a chronological table giving the main events of Say's life and editorial activity in parallel with the main political, economic and monetary events of the time.

The Routledge Handbook of FinTech offers comprehensive coverage of the opportunities, challenges and future trends of financial technology. This handbook is a unique and in-depth reference work. It is organised in six thematic parts. The first part outlines the development, funding, and the future trends. The second focuses on blockchain technology applications and various aspects of cryptocurrencies. The next covers FinTech in banking. A significant element of FinTech, mobile payments and online lending, is included in the fourth part. The fifth continues with several chapters covering other financial services, while the last discusses ethics and regulatory issues. These six parts represent the most significant and overarching themes of FinTech innovations. This handbook will appeal to students, established researchers seeking a single repository on the subject, as well as policy makers and market professionals seeking convenient access to a one-stop guide.

Consumer credit borrowing - using credit cards, store cards and personal loans - is an important and routine part of many of our lives. But what happens when these everyday forms of borrowing go 'bad', when people start to default on their loans and when they cannot, or will not, repay? It is this poorly understood, controversial, but central part of both the consumer credit industry and the lived experiences of an increasing number of people that this book explores. Drawing on research from the interior of the debt collections industry, as well as debtors' own accounts and historical research into technologies of lending and collection, it examines precisely how this ever more sophisticated, globally connected market functions. It focuses on the highly intimate techniques used to try and recoup defaulting debts from borrowers, as well as on the collection industry's relationship with lenders. Joe Deville follows a journey of default, from debtors' borrowing practices, to the intrusion of collections technologies into their homes and everyday lives, to the collections organisation, to attempts by debtors to seek outside help. In the process he shows how to understand this particular market, we need to understand the central role played within it by emotion and affect. By opening up for scrutiny an area of the economy which is often hidden from view, this book makes a major contribution both to understanding the relationship between emotion and calculation in markets and the role of consumer credit in our societies and economies. This book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers in a range of fields, including sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, economics and social psychology.