Offering a comprehensive guide to financial shocks and crises, this book explores their increasing occurrence in current market economies, as well as their power to wrench the macroeconomy. It discusses three critical questions: what causes financial shocks; which channels may exacerbate their impact; and what policies could help avoid them or limit their negative effect on the economy and society at large. Drawing together contributions from top scholars in the field, this Modern Guide addresses both the causes and consequences of financial instability after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) at both micro and macro levels. Chapters conceptualise financial crises, highlight their main channels of transmission, and explore the role of public policies, looking at how to learn from past financial crises to prevent future ones. The book further examines why financial shocks will be a permanent trait in the future, and the potential impacts of market economics continuing to expand financialisation as they have done over recent decades. This Modern Guide will be a timely resource for economics students and scholars, particularly as it compares the impacts of the GFC and Covid-19 and explores why these are so different. It will also be an important read for policy makers seeking advice on how to manage and avoid financial crises.

In this bold reevaluation of a decisive moment in American history, Michael Hiltzik dispels decades of accumulated myths and misconceptions about the New Deal to capture with clarity and immediacy its origins, its legacy, and its genius.

'This wise and lucid guide to pluralism in economics embodies the values of its cause. Generous, open-minded, fair, accurate and accessible: John Harvey's new book is a fine achievement that every economics major should read.' - James K. Galbraith, The University of Texas at Austin, USJohn Harvey's accessible book provides a non-technical yet rigorous introduction to various schools of thought in economics. Premised on the idea that economic thinking has been stunted by the almost complete rejection of anything outside the mainstream, the author hopes that this volume will open readers' minds and lead them in new and productive directions. In his exploration of Neoclassical, Marxist, Austrian, Post Keynesian, Institutionalist, New Institutionalist and Feminist schools of thought, unique features of each approach are highlighted, complemented by discussions of methodology, world views, popular themes, and current activities. Accurate and impartial, every chapter covering a heterodox school of thought has been vetted by an acknowledged expert in that field. Though written for use in undergraduate courses, this guide will no doubt offer a great deal to any scholar wishing to gain a fresh perspective and greater understanding of the variety and breadth of current economic thinking.

This insightful book traces the evolution of corporate power in the United States, from social control over corporate power under early state laws to the modern liberation of the corporation serving primarily private purposes. It illustrates how the transition of attitudes towards corporations and dynamic changes in public policy have ushered in an age of financial fragility, income inequality and macroeconomic instability. The book employs an evolutionary methodology to consider the role of the corporation in the US economy, and how that role as a tool for public purposes, defined by special charters, changed with the widening of markets and increasing industrial capacity for mass production. Evaluating the stages of capitalist development, chapters demonstrate how the co-evolution of law, economics and finance altered economic organization, leading to the evolution of core economic concepts such as capital, income and resources. The book examines the transition of corporate purpose towards generating wealth and enhancing profits in the early twentieth century and analyzes recent trends through illuminating case studies in financialization. It concludes with crucial insights into the future of the corporation, offering potential pathways for economists to intervene and address the systemic problems that are endemic to the modern financial era. A rousing and provocative call to arms for modern economists, this book is key reading for scholars and researchers of economics, particularly those focusing on the evolution of economic and business institutions and its impact on the social fabric of the US. Practitioners and policymakers will also benefit from its empirical perspectives on financialization.

This timely book studies the economic theories of credit cycles and disturbances in the 20th century, presenting a nuanced view of the role of finance in the economy after the financial crash of 2008. Focusing on the work of economists from Marx onwards, Jan Toporowski moves beyond conventional monetary theory to offer an insightful critical alternative to current financial macroeconomics. The book features an extended discussion of Marx's approach to credit and finance, new insights to Minsky's ideas and a reconsideration of the financial theories of Kalecki and Steindl. Economic researchers and postgraduate students seeking to extend their knowledge of critical approaches to finance will find this an invaluable read, as well as practitioners and policy makers who seek to understand financial instability and unstable markets. This will also be an insightful read for economic historians looking to understand the nuances of different key economic theories and their practical applications. This timely book studies the economic theories of credit cycles and disturbances in the 20th century, presenting a nuanced view of the role of finance in the economy after the financial crash of 2008.

Tom Palley has made a significant contribution to understanding the meaning and significance of neoliberalism. This chronicle collects some of his best work to explain how global adoption of neoliberal policies over the past thirty years has increased income inequality and created tendencies to stagnation. The book explores the impact of neoliberal policies on the US, Europe, and global economy. It shows how the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession were predictable outcomes of the neoliberal policy experiment, as is the emergence of global "race to the bottom" competition. It also explains how Europe's economic fragility is connected to the neoliberal design of the euro. Neoliberalism creates a particular variety of capitalism. It is a political choice. That means society is tacitly engaged in a "war of ideas", the outcome of which will determine our future political economic trajectory. Students, scholars, and readers in economics and political science will find this rich collection illuminating in their efforts to better understand the policy matrix that currently dominates the political landscape.

For most economists, 'Austrian economics' refers to a distinct school of thought, originating with Mises and Hayek and characterised by a strong commitment to free-market liberalism. This innovative book explores an alternative Austrian tradition in economics. Socialist in spirit but too diffuse to be described as a single school of thought, it shares a common conviction that the market, while possibly a good servant, is a very poor master. Demonstrating how the debate on the economics of socialism began in Austria long before the 1930s, this unique book analyses the work and impact of many leading Austrian economists. Beginning with the Austro-Marxist theorists Otto Bauer and Rudolf Hilferding and moving through to the new generation of social democratic economists, most prominently Kurt Rothschild and Josef Steindl, The Alternative Austrian Economics provides insight into the history and evolution of socialist economics in Austria. Offering a previously underrepresented discussion of a century of Austrian socialist economics, this engaging book will prove to be of great value to Marxian and heterodox economists, historians of economic thought and political scientists interested in political economy.

Economic theory reached its highest level of analytical power and depth in the middle of the nineteenth century among John Stuart Mill and his contemporaries. This book explains classical economics when it was at its height, followed by an analysis of what took place as a result of the ensuing Marginal and Keynesian Revolutions that have left economists less able to understand how economies operate. Chapters explore the false mythology that has obscured the arguments of classical economists, clouding to the point of near invisibility the theories they had developed. Steven Kates offers a thorough understanding of the operation of an economy within a classical framework, providing a new perspective for viewing modern economic theory from the outside. This provocative book not only explains the meaning of Say's Law in an accessible way, but also the origins of the Keynesian revolution and Keynes's pathway in writing The General Theory. It provides a new look at the classical theory of value at its height that was not based, as so many now wrongly believe, on the labour theory of value. A crucial read for economic policy-makers seeking to understand the operation of a market economy, this book should also be of keen interest to economists generally as well as scholars in the history of economic thought.

You Spend It. You Save It. You Never Have Enough of It. But how does money actually work? Understanding cash, currencies and the financial system is vital for making sense of what is going on in our world, especially now. Since the 2008 financial crisis, money has rarely been out of the headlines. Central banks have launched extraordinary policies, like quantitative easing or negative interest rates. New means of payment, like Bitcoin and Apple Pay, are changing how we interact with money and how governments and corporations keep track of our spending. Radical politicians in the US and UK are urging us to transform our financial system and make it the servant of social justice. And yet, if you stopped for a moment and asked yourself whether you really understand how it works, would you honestly be able to say 'yes'? In Money in One Lesson, Gavin Jackson, a lead writer for the Financial Times, specialising in economics, business and public policy, answers the most important questions to clarify for the reader what money is and how it shapes our societies. With brilliant storytelling, Jackson provides a basic understanding of the most important element of our everyday lives. Drawing on stories like the 1970s Irish Banking Strike to show what money actually is, and the Great Inflation of West Africa's cowrie shell money to explain how it keeps its value, Money in One Lesson demystifies the world of finance and explains how societies, both past and present, are forever entwined with monetary matters.

The third of October 2020 marked the 90th anniversary of the Brazilian Revolution of 1930. Although this event is recognized in Brazilian historiography as an important landmark in the construction of contemporary Brazil, debate, discourse and indeed publications commemorating the event have been much less numerous and profound than would be expected. Comparisons have been made with what took place in 1980, the year of the revolutions fiftieth anniversary, where meaningful historical judgements were made across a wide spectrum of society and the political establishment. It is pertinent to ask why there is no longer the appetite for substantive discussion on the Vargas period. Perhaps it is due to the new political climate in Brazil in the last decade, especially with regard to various projects aimed at labour and trade union reform, the main legacies of the revolutionary period which today are considered by many as obstacles to the modernization of the labour market and the countrys economic development. Given the economic imperatives and aims of the 1930 Revolution, a re-evaluation of the Vargas Period will assist in better understanding the contemporary economic issues that face Brazil today. The exercise is neither one of nostalgia or exaltation of this past period, but rather to offer a (positive and negative) overview of Vargas legacy and the vast historiography that surrounds it. Scholars, politicians, business and the Brazilian workforce need to learn from past economic choices in order to better understand the challenges that contemporary Brazil faces. Recently proposed reforms have strong overtones to the revolutionary agenda of the 1930s, namely the forging of a New Brazil and the necessity of avoiding political schism. This book examines the political, economic, labour, cultural, military, and gender ramifications that will guide debate.

Commerce meets conquest in this swashbuckling story of the six merchant-adventurers who built the modern world

It was an era when monopoly trading companies were the unofficial agents of European expansion, controlling vast numbers of people and huge tracts of land, and taking on governmental and military functions. They managed their territories as business interests, treating their subjects as employees, customers, or competitors. The leaders of these trading enterprises exercised virtually unaccountable, dictatorial political power over millions of people.

The merchant kings of the Age of Heroic Commerce were a rogue's gallery of larger-than-life men who, for a couple hundred years, expanded their far-flung commercial enterprises over a sizable portion of the world. They include Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the violent and autocratic pioneer of the Dutch East India Company; Peter Stuyvesant, the one-legged governor of the Dutch West India Company, whose narrow-minded approach lost Manhattan to the British; Robert Clive, who rose from company clerk to become head of the British East India Company and one of the wealthiest men in Britain; Alexandr Baranov of the Russian American Company; Cecil Rhodes, founder of De Beers and Rhodesia; and George Simpson, the "Little Emperor" of the Hudson's Bay Company, who was chauffeured about his vast fur domain in a giant canoe, exhorting his voyageurs to paddle harder so he could set speed records."Merchant Kings" looks at the rise and fall of company rule in the centuries before colonialism, when nations belatedly assumed responsibility for their commercial enterprises. A blend of biography, corporate history, and colonial history, this book offers a panoramic, new perspective on the enormous cultural, political, and social legacies, good and bad, of this first period of unfettered globalization.

Ray Dalio, the legendary investor and international bestselling author of Principles - whose books have sold more than five million copies worldwide - shares his unique template for how debt crises work and principles for dealing with them well. This template allowed his firm, Bridgewater Associates, to antic ipate 2008's events and navigate them well while others struggled badly. As he explained in his international best seller Principles, Ray Dalio believes that almost everything happens over and over again through time, so that by studying patterns one can understand the cause-effect relationships behind events and develop principles for dealing with them well. In this three-part research series, he does just that for big debt crises and shares his template in the hopes of reducing the chances of big debt crises hap pening and helping them be better managed in the future. The template comes in three parts: 1. The Archetypal Big Debt Cycle (which explains the template) 2. Three Detailed Cases (which examines in depth the 2008 financial crisis, the 1930s Great Depression and the 1920s infla tionary depression of Germany's Weimar Republic) 3. Compendium of 48 Cases (which is a compendium of charts and brief descriptions of the worst debt crises of the last 100 years) Whether you're an investor, a policy maker, or are simply interested in debt, this unconventional perspective from one of the few people who navigated the crisis successfully, Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises will help you understand the economy and markets in revealing new ways.

This defining and original book explores the history of monopoly power and of its relation to competition, focusing on the innovative contributions of the Italian Marginalists ? Pareto, Pantaleoni, De Viti de Marco and Barone. Manuela Mosca analyses their articulate vision of competition, and the structural and strategic entry barriers considered in their works to enrich existing literature on the history of the sources of market power. The book is not limited to the reconstruction of the elaboration of pure theory, it also highlights its policy implications and how this group applied their theories as cutting-edge experiments in analysing the labour market, socialism, the Great War and gender issues, against the background of the political situation of the period. Monopoly Power and Competition is a vital resource for historians of economic thought, as it explores a relatively untouched area of microeconomics in historical perspective, and reveals the theories surrounding monopoly power and competition. Microeconomists and industrial organisation scholars would similarly benefit from the knowledge of the origins of many microeconomic tools and notions.

GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL is nothing less than an enquiry into the reasonswhy Europe and the Near East became the cradle of modern societies- eventually giving rise to capitalism and science, the dominant forces in our contemporary world-and why,until modern times. Africa, Australasia and the Americas lagged behind in technological sophistication and in political and military power. The native peoplesof those continents are still suffering the consequences. Diamond shows definitively that the origins of this inequality in human fortunes cannot be laid at the door of race or inherent features of the people themselves. He argues that the inequality stems instaed from the differing natural resources available to the people of each continent.

This book is an edited collection by leading insurance historians, examining the historical role of reinsurance (the insurance of insurers) in the insurance markets of eight countries: USA, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Spain, Italy, Mexico and Japan. All the contributors are experts in their field and have widely published in insurance history, providing the reader with new insights into the insurance and economic history of these countries. In particular, this is the first book to explore the reinsurance markets in the USA, Netherlands, France, Italy and Mexico. This book will be of interest to economic and business historians, as well as insurance practitioners with an interest in the history of their industry.

A polished and masterly work of historical narrative, The Marshall Plan is an instant classic of Cold War literature. With Britain's empire collapsing and Stalin's ascendant, U.S. officials under new Secretary of State George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continues to shape world events. This is the story behind the birth of the Cold War, and the U.S.-led liberal global order, told with verve, insight, and resonance for today. Bringing to bear fascinating new material from American, Russian, German, and other European archives, Benn Steil's book will forever change how we see the Marshall Plan. Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Steil's gripping narrative takes us through the seminal episodes that marked the collapse of postwar U.S.-Soviet relations: the Prague coup, the Berlin blockade, and the division of Germany. In each case, Stalin's determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe is vividly portrayed. And in a riveting epilogue, Steil shows how the forces which clove Europe in two after the Second World War have reasserted themselves since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A richly illustrated source book for the study of the Irish famine.

Marx and Engels were right when they observed in the Communist Manifesto that free markets had in a short time created greater prosperity and more technological innovation than all previous generations combined. A century and a half later, all the evidence shows that capitalism has lifted millions and millions from hunger and poverty.

Today's story about global capitalism, shared by right-wing and left-wing populists, but also by large sections of the political and economic establishment, does not deny that prosperity has been created, but it says it ended up in far too few hands. This in turn has made it popular to talk about the global economy as a geopolitical zero-sum game, where we have to fight to control new innovations, introduce trade barriers and renationalise value chains.

In this incisive and passionate investigation, Johan Norberg instead states the case for capitalism and the vital role played by the free market in today's uncertain world. Ultimately, he argues that that a move away from global capitalism would not only squeeze the growth out of the economy but also deepen an already large social exclusion for the vulnerable.

We live in a world in which financial markets have become completely decoupled from the real economy…

The world’s four largest banks now all reside in one nation: China…

Lines of code are considered more trustworthy than central banks…

In this broad-ranging, deeply researched review of modern banking and financial systems, analysts David Buckham, Robyn Wilkinson and Christiaan Straeuli unpick in parallel the ongoing erosion of trust in capitalist free markets and Western democratic institutions, and the directly related, unprecedented growth of the Chinese banking system. The former is a decades-long tale of intermittent market manipulation, inadequately regulated hubris and outright criminality, which produced the Global Financial Crisis, the most devastating financial meltdown since the Great Depression. The latter, which in various ways mirrors the conditions that led to the Crisis, may well prove worse.

In detailing the unheeded lessons of financial history, the authors reveal how the inconsistently managed tension between free markets and government regulation has led us from depression and regulation to deregulation and crisis. And with incursions into string theory, the mathematics of cryptocurrency and the intricacies of money supply, we discover what happens when an authoritarian command economy fills the moral and ideological vacuum left behind.

In a post-Covid world – in which we are witnessing booming stock markets entirely disconnected from real-world economic hardship, and communist billionaires propagating just as global inequality skyrockets – public trust in the international banking system has never been lower. This is an unprecedented survey of a fraught and complex landscape that has never been more urgent.

A comprehensive and profoundly relevant history of interest from one of the world's leading financial writers, The Price of Time explains our current global financial position and how we got here In the beginning was the loan, and the loan carried interest. For at least five millennia people have been borrowing and lending at interest. The practice wasn't always popular--in the ancient world, usury was generally viewed as exploitative, a potential path to debt bondage and slavery. Yet as capitalism became established from the late Middle Ages onwards, denunciations of interest were tempered because interest was a necessary reward for lenders to part with their capital. And interest performs many other vital functions: it encourages people to save; enables them to place a value on precious assets, such as houses and all manner of financial securities; and allows us to price risk.All economic and financial activities take place across time. Interest is often described as the "price of money," but it is better called the "price of time: " time is scarce, time has value, interest is the time value of money.Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, interest rates have sunk lower than ever before. Easy money after the global financial crisis in 2007/2008 has produced several ill effects, including the appearance of multiple asset price bubbles, a reduction in productivity growth, discouraging savings and exacerbating inequality, and forcing yield starved investors to take on excessive risk. The financial world now finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place, and Edward Chancellor is here to tell us why. In this enriching volume, Chancellor explores the history of interest and its essential function in determining how capital is allocated and priced.

How have the most influential political economists of the past three centuries theorized about sovereign borrowing and shaped its now widespread use? This important question receives a comprehensive answer in this original work, featuring careful textual analysis and illuminating exhibits of public debt empirics since 1700. Beyond its value as a definitive, authoritative history of thought on public debt, this book rehabilitates and reintroduces a realist perspective into a contemporary debate now heavily dominated by pessimists and optimists alike. The book simultaneously explicates and critiques the most prominent theories concerning why states borrow in the first place, whether or not they borrow productively, the incidence of their debts, why they sometimes borrow too much and why they often default, whether explicitly or implicitly. The author classifies major public debt theorists as pessimists, optimists or realists. This book also examines the influence of regime types, especially why most modern welfare states tend not only to over-issue bonds but also to incur even larger implicit obligations via unfunded, off-balance sheet liabilities. Scholars and undergraduate and graduate students in economics and political science, as well as policymakers, will find this analysis of public debt and public spending insightful and revealing.

In The Political Economy and Feasibility of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies Spencer J. Pack brings his authority as a scholar and advisor to this study of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies from the perspective of the history of economic thought. Major theorists analyzed in depth include Aristotle, Smith, Law, Marx, Keynes, Rothbard and Hayek, and the book draws extensively upon the ideas of Schumpeter, Galbraith and Sraffa. The book argues for reconceptualization of the basic microeconomic categories into rental, sale and financial asset prices along with a reconsideration of Keynes' general theory to his special theory and Rothbard's relationship to Rousseau. The author posits that intense theoretical and practical struggles will continue over who should control the quantity of money, the cause of the capitalist economy's instability, and who or what is more dangerous: concentrated centers of private wealth and private enterprises or the contemporary state. He concludes that in terms of the quality of money, the cryptocurrency community is probably correct, with new forms of money potentially being better than sovereign fiat currency. The book's relevance will appeal to members of the history of economic thought community, economic theorists, and political science and political theory scholars as well as to policy makers and members of the cryptocurrency community.