Financialisation has become a widely discussed and debated term leading to a plurality of perspectives, but no fixed definition or single reading. This book presents a critical exploration and review of the current literature on financialisation, focusing on the financialisation of NFCs and its possible implications for the macroeconomic and financial stability of advanced countries. Starting from this critical analysis, it proposes some new readings of the process of financialisation, linking it directly, on the one hand, to the evolution of interest-bearing capital and the credit system, and, on the other hand, to the historical tendencies of monopoly capital towards financial arrangements to manage corporate control. Finally, a conceptual scheme for interpretation and a mathematical model of corporate portfolio choice is developed to explain how the tendency in developed countries to place growing shares of social surplus in speculative financial channels can contribute to their long-term real stagnation. The book also underlines the excessive attention usually being paid to some micro-epiphenomena that show a fallacy of composition at the macroeconomic level and can lead to some misunderstandings of the general trends in capitalist evolution. Moreover, some doubts are raised about the extent to which financialisation actually represents a change to the present regime of accumulation. The book targets all the scholars who are interested in better understanding whether financialisation constitutes a profound change in the functioning of capitalist economic systems and what effects it can produce in social welfare in the advanced countries.

Mark Blackburn was one of the leading scholars of the numismatics and monetary history of the British Isles and Scandinavia during the early medieval period. He published more than 200 books and articles on the subject, and was instrumental in building bridges between numismatics and associated disciplines, in fostering international communication and cooperation, and in establishing initiatives to record new coin finds. This memorial volume of essays commemorates Mark Blackburn's considerable achievement and impact on the field, builds on his research and evaluates a vibrant period in the study of early medieval monetary history. Containing a broad range of high-quality research from both established figures and younger scholars, the essays in this volume maintain a tight focus on Europe in the early Middle Ages (6th-12th centuries), reflecting Mark's primary research interests. In geographical terms the scope of the volume stretches from Spain to the Baltic, with a concentration of papers on the British Isles. As well as a fitting tribute to remarkable scholar, the essays in this collection constitute a major body of research which will be of long-term value to anyone with an interest in the history of early medieval Europe.

An up to date short study which examines the key debates on British economic performance since 1914. Rex Pope considers the indicators and measures involved in assessing economic performance and then looks at issues affecting the economy such as the role of government, British entrepreneurship, the state of world markets, the effect of the two world wars and the importance of cultural attitudes towards industry.

Since 1970s when the world was experiencing an "age of inflation", a great volume of academic research about hyperinflation has been conducted. However, it is also true that parrot-like superficial talks abound, without questioning the economic, political and social foundations existing underneath the economic phenomenon. Based on research results of contemporary economists, media reports and historical works, this book will be the most comprehensive narrative of all major events of hyperinflation worldwide from the turn of the first millennium to the mid-2010s. Firstly, it gives a brief illustration of the basic concepts of hyperinflation, starting with the definitions and price measurement. Then it traces and analyzes all major episodes of hyperinflation that occurred over the past two thousand years or so, from the earliest incidence to the four tidal waves in the 20th century, and to the three latest episodes in the 21st century. Using basic concepts in modern finance such as indexation and dollarization, this book explains why hyperinflation in some countries could explode into astronomical levels, while rhythms of hyperinflation in the 20th century world are in resonance of megatrends in world economy and politics. Finally, this book underscores the importance of policy making, institutional building and international relations in the process of hyperinflation and stabilization. Scholars and students studying money and finance, economic history, international finance and economics will be attracted by this book.

Originally published in 1968, and using official records, this book charts the history of the Railway Clearing House and shows the vital role it played in the development of British railways and the growth of the economy. The Clearing House established a common classification of goods; standardized signalling systems and telegraphic codes among the 120 railway companies which operated in Britain before the First World War. It was the nerve centre of the railway for nearly a century and at one time more than 2,500 clerks were employed in its huge offices near Euston Station in London.

Introduces the key economic thinkers alongside political economists from other disciplines to provide a broad and interdisciplinary introduction to theories of political economy. The unique structure combines discussions of key theorists with developments in theory to introduce readers to the idea that political economy is both an approach to understanding capitalism and a reflection of capitalism at particular moments. Visual support, such as tables, charts, maps, and graphs, along with breakout boxes providing short summaries and important asides are utilized throughout the book to ensure that the text appeals to a broad range of students.

How to sustain an international system of cooperation in the midst of geopolitical struggle Can the international economic and legal system survive today's fractured geopolitics? Democracies are facing a drawn-out contest with authoritarian states that is entangling much of public policy with global security issues. In Global Discord, Paul Tucker lays out principles for a sustainable system of international cooperation, showing how democracies can deal with China and other illiberal states without sacrificing their deepest political values. Drawing on three decades as a central banker and regulator, Tucker applies these principles to the international monetary order, including the role of the U.S. dollar, trade and investment regimes, and the financial system. Combining history, economics, and political and legal philosophy, Tucker offers a new account of international relations. Rejecting intellectual traditions that go back to Hobbes, Kant, and Grotius, and deploying instead ideas from David Hume, Bernard Williams, and modern mechanism-design economists, Tucker describes a new kind of political realism that emphasizes power and interests without sidelining morality. Incentives must be aligned with values if institutions are to endure. The connecting tissue for a system of international cooperation, he writes, should be legitimacy, creating a world of concentric circles in which we cooperate more with those with whom we share the most and whom we fear the least.

This major new textbook on business history brings together the expertise of two internationally renowned authors to provide a thorough overview of the developments in business from just before the industrial revolution right up to the present day.

Business History is global in scope and looks at the major players Europe, the US and Japan as well as emerging economies, such as China and India. Focusing mainly on big business, Amatori and Colli critically analyze the firm and its interaction with the evolution of economic, technological and political systems at the micro and macro levels.

This up-to-date textbook is an exceptional resource for students on economic and business history courses, as well as for practitioners interested in broadening their understanding of business.

A powerful case that the economic shocks of the 1970s hastened both the end of the Cold War and the rise of neoliberalism by forcing governments to impose austerity on their own people. Why did the Cold War come to a peaceful end? And why did neoliberal economics sweep across the world in the late twentieth century? In this pathbreaking study, Fritz Bartel argues that the answer to these questions is one and the same. The Cold War began as a competition between capitalist and communist governments to expand their social contracts as they raced to deliver their people a better life. But the economic shocks of the 1970s made promises of better living untenable on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Energy and financial markets placed immense pressure on governments to discipline their social contracts. Rather than make promises, political leaders were forced to break them. In a sweeping narrative, The Triumph of Broken Promises tells the story of how the pressure to break promises spurred the end of the Cold War. In the West, neoliberalism provided Western leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher with the political and ideological tools to shut down industries, impose austerity, and favor the interests of capital over labor. But in Eastern Europe, revolutionaries like Lech Walesa in Poland resisted any attempt at imposing market discipline. Mikhail Gorbachev tried in vain to reform the Soviet system, but the necessary changes ultimately presented too great a challenge. Faced with imposing economic discipline antithetical to communist ideals, Soviet-style governments found their legitimacy irreparably damaged. But in the West, politicians could promote austerity as an antidote to the excesses of ideological opponents, setting the stage for the rise of the neoliberal global economy.

Originally published in 1972 this study analyses the process of economic growth and social change in the riparian communities of the Lower Volta River in Ghana, which came about in large part due to the construction of the Volta dam in 1963. With its completion many of the riparian communities were denied the ecconomic advatages of natural irrigation and water flow for inland fisheries, although they did benefit through the emergence of a valuable lake fishery. The study cound that the socio-economic preconditions for a rise in the standard of living had been building up over some time and many social, economic and political forms of change had been introduced to change the previous static equlibrium. Such influences began to erode the hitherto unquestioned acceptance of traditional institutions and the stability and security they offered.

The apartheid state was at war. It was a conflict intended to stifle demands for freedom, subjugate Southern Africa and benefit the grip on power by the ruling elite. It was a fight for survival, which was to intensify in the two decades before South Africa’s liberation in 1994. While internal resistance grew, the United Nations imposed mandatory sanctions prohibiting the sale of strategic goods such as arms and oil to South Africa. The regime was confronted with an existential threat – isolation. A covert network of over 50 countries, including big powers and sworn enemies, was constructed to counter sanctions to illegally supply guns to Pretoria. Under the cloak of secrecy, allies in corporations, banks, governments and intelligence agencies sprung into action.

Apartheid, Guns And Money: A Tale Of Profit is an exposé of this machinery created in defence of apartheid. They include heads of states, arms dealers, aristocrats, plutocrats, senators, bankers, spies, journalists and members of secret lobby groups. Moving in the shadows, these people were complicit in a crime against humanity. The motivation for some was ideological as part of the Cold War anti-communism crusade. Others felt kinship with the last white regime in Africa. The book also addresses questions of unsolved murders and domestic complicity by South African business with the apartheid state.

This deeply researched book lifts the lid on some of the darkest secrets of apartheid’s economic crimes never before fully investigated. The stories weave together material collected in over two dozen archives in eight countries over four years, providing readers with an insight into tens of thousands of pages of newly declassified documents. Interviews with businessmen, politicians, sanctions busters and freedom fighters provide eyewitness accounts of acts of complicity and contrition.

The book argues that networks of state capture have been with us for decades. These must be confronted to deal with the corrupt networks in our democratic political system. In forging the country’s future a new generation needs to grapple with the baffling silence of apartheid-era economic crime and ask difficult questions of those who benefitted from it. This book provides the evidence and the motivation to do so.

Winner of the 2021 Lionel Gelber Prize: A provocative look at how today's trade conflicts are caused by governments promoting the interests of elites at the expense of workers "The authors weave a complex tapestry of monetary, fiscal and social policies through history and offer opinions about what went right and what went wrong . . . Worth reading for their insights into the history of trade and finance."-George Melloan, Wall Street Journal "This is a very important book."-Martin Wolf, Financial Times Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees. Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today's trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past thirty years. Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce, have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt. In this thought-provoking challenge to mainstream views, the authors provide a cohesive narrative that shows how the class wars of rising inequality are a threat to the global economy and international peace-and what we can do about it. Longlisted for the 2020 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award and named a Best Business Book of 2020 by Strategy + Business

An "incredibly timely" global history journeys from the Ukrainian steppe to the American prairie to show how grain built and toppled the world's largest empires (Financial Times). To understand the rise and fall of empires, we must follow the paths traveled by grain--along rivers, between ports, and across seas. In Oceans of Grain, historian Scott Reynolds Nelson reveals how the struggle to dominate these routes transformed the balance of world power. Early in the nineteenth century, imperial Russia fed much of Europe through the booming port of Odessa, on the Black Sea in Ukraine. But following the US Civil War, tons of American wheat began to flood across the Atlantic, and food prices plummeted. This cheap foreign grain spurred the rise of Germany and Italy, the decline of the Habsburgs and the Ottomans, and the European scramble for empire. It was a crucial factor in the outbreak of the First World War and the Russian Revolution. A powerful new interpretation, Oceans of Grain shows that amid the great powers' rivalries, there was no greater power than control of grain.

This book, first published in 1994, takes a broad look at the reasons behind the failure of foreign banks to penetrate Japanese financial markets. It accepts the common argument that the Japanese bureaucracy has skilfully limited the scope of foreign banks and discusses at length the methods used to do so. However, in examining the history of foreign banking activity in Japan, it becomes clear that ineptitude on the part of the foreign banks and governments has also been a major factor.

This book, first published in 1982, closely examines the Japanese investment in the industries of its puppet state Manchuria in the years 1930 to 1945. Attention is paid to industrial capital by source and type, facilitating the analysis of the relationship between the different investment components on one hand, and economic and institutional factors on the other. The course of inflation is also traced and its relationship to industrial investment studied. The Manchurian experience throws light on the volume of capital available through inflationary processes, the point up to which inflationary financing can successfully be carried, and the institutional factors necessary to make such a policy effective in increasing real investment.

'This book is a must for anyone interested in the concept of social capital.' - Martin Seeleib-Kaiser, University of Oxford, UK The book investigates the determinants of social capital across 85 European regions capturing the renewed interest among social capital theorists for the importance of active secondary groups in supporting the correct functioning of society and its democratic institutions. Robert Putnam merged quantitative and historical analyses, suggesting that the lack of social capital in the south of Italy was mainly due to a peculiar historical development rather than being the product of a mix of structural socio-economic factors, a conclusion that has been the subject of fierce criticism and debate. Emanuele Ferragina analyzes the influence of income inequality, economic development, labor market participation and national divergence. By complementing these socio-economic explanations with a comparative historic-institutional analysis between two deviant cases (Wallonia and the south of Italy) and two regular cases (Flanders and the north east of Italy), the findings suggest that income inequality, labor market participation and national divergence are important factors in explaining the lack of social capital. Furthermore, the traditional historical determinism is refuted with the formulation of the sleeping social capital theory. Sociologists, political scientists, economic historians and scholars interested in comparative methods and European politics and policy will find this informative book invaluable.

This study of the Anglo--Dutch Wars (1652-54, 1665-67, 1672-74) sets them in their naval, political and economic contexts. Competing essentially over trade, both governments were crucially influenced by mercantile interests and by the representative institutions that were central to England and the Dutch Republic. Professor Jones compares the effectiveness of the governments under pressure - English with Dutch, Commonwealth with restored monarchy, Republican with Orangist - and the effects on their economies; and examines the importance of the wars in accelerating the formation of a professional officer corps and establishing battle tactics that would endure throughout the age of sail.

Originally published in 1986, this work discusses the development in Dacca of western-style municipal organization and its financial and practical problems and also explores the economic transition of the city after 1840. It is one of the few urban studies which carries through from the 'old order' to the new administrative towns of British rule and attempts to show what happened to the communities of townsmen in the period of adaptation. It casts new light on the function and organization of Indian urban societies in the colonial period, on the transfer of western institutions and the organization and composition of Bengali trade outside Calcutta.

The Origins of the Consumer Revolution in England explores the rise of consumerism from the end of the medieval period through to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The book takes a detailed look at when the 'consumer revolution' began, tracing its evolution from the years following the Black Death through to the nineteenth century. In doing so, it also considers which social classes were included, and how different areas of the country were affected at different times, examining the significant role that location played in the development of consumption. This new study is based upon the largest database of English probate records yet assembled, which has been used in conjunction with a range of other sources to offer a broad and detailed chronological approach. Filling in the gaps within previous research, it examines changing patterns in relation to food and drink, clothing, household furnishings and religion, focussing on the goods themselves to illuminate items in common ownership, rather than those owned only by the elite. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative evidence to explore the development of consumption, The Origins of the Consumer Revolution in England will be of great use to scholars and students of late medieval and early modern economic and social history, with an interest in the development of consumerism in England.

This study, first published in 1906, examines the position of the United States in the markets of the Chinese Empire and the steps necessary to insure a greater development of American commerce in the Far East.

* The book is written in a lively style and includes text boxes highlighting little-known and often amusing facts about these famous economists, all of which add colour to the text * Provides a comprehensive overview of the historical development of economic thought and of its relevance to contemporary policy issues * Offers an Austrian economics perspective, in contrast to the competing textbooks * Updated to cover MMT (modern monetary theory), climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic; minimum wage debates, Schumpeter and socialism, Malthus and immigration, and more

Originally published in 1981, Patterns of European Urbanisation Since 1500 examines urbanisation in Europe since 1500, paying particular attention to the underlying factors which govern the differentiated process of urbanisation. The book goes on to formulate some of the ways in which these factors can be generalised in an attempt to delineate the process of urbanisation in theoretic terms.

Originally published in 1985, Urbanisation in China is based on extensive original research and fieldwork, considers the whole problem of urbanisation in China. Starting with an outline of the pre-communist legacy, the author traces population changes and urban growth throughout the communist period, assesses policies aimed at restricting urban growth and contrasts the reality of urban China with the image the authorities have tried to project. The policy changes that occurred following the death of Mao are analysed and concludes with a consideration of likely developments up to the end of the century.

History and politics students alike will welcome this new "Seminar Study" which analyses the Khrushchev era -- a critical period of Soviet and world history. It was Khrushchev who, in 1957, finally filled the political vacuum left by the death of Stalin in 1953. He was an erratic, impulsive, inspirational and innovative leader who addressed the fundamental problems of the country - and yet he was, Martin McCauley argues, "a brilliant failure''. In this study the author explores all aspects of the Khrushchev era: including reforms in agriculture, economic policy, crises in Eastern Europe, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, de-Stalinisation and Khrushchev's attempts to reform the Communist Party.