'Already an accomplished scholar Shen Wei offers a masterly study of the Chinese shadow banking sector in context. The book constitutes a thorough analysis of the nature of the Chinese shadow banking sector and of the political events, economic rationales and institutions that have shaped it. Beyond offering expert legal analysis this book is also very rich on information and research about the institutional and economic necessities that have shaped the Chinese financial system in its present form and gave rise to a mighty shadow banking sector. The book is very well organized and competently drafted, thus, it is easily accessible to both the expert and non-expert reader. I have no doubt that this is bound to become the standard reference work for everybody wishing to study the nature of the Chinese shadow banking sector and of the institutions underpinning it in context.' - Emilios Avgouleas, University of Edinburgh, UK 'Shadow Banking in China: Risk, Regulation and Policy by Professor Shen Wei is a timely book, presenting readers with a comprehensive and coherent conceptualization of shadow banking in China. It systematically defines shadow banking, describes how the different types of shadow banking subsectors -- including wealth management products, peer-to-peer lending, local government financing vehicles, and underground lending -- are growing, and examines how Chinese regulators are responding. It also explains the risk-taking, economics, and behavioral aspects of each of these subsectors, revealing the endogenous market forces driving their expansion and describing how shadow banking is innovatively helping to channel funding to the cash-starved private sector and real economy.' - from the Foreword by Steven L. Schwarcz, Duke University, School of Law In light of the current regulatory regime in China's banking sector, this book investigates the causes, key forms, potential risks and regulation of shadow banking in China. The first China-specific book of its kind, the author takes policy considerations into account whilst providing an analysis of the regulatory instruments tackling the systematic risks in its banking as well as shadow banking sectors. Key shadow banking subsectors discussed include P2P lending, wealth management products, local government debts, and the underground lending market. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in the legal field, as well as those from other disciplines including social science, business, and finance. It will also be of use to lawyers, policymakers and regulators looking for practical solutions in tackling the issues facing a rising shadow banking sector today.

Handbook of U.S. Consumer Economics presents a deep understanding on key, current topics and a primer on the landscape of contemporary research on the U.S. consumer. This volume reveals new insights into household decision-making on consumption and saving, borrowing and investing, portfolio allocation, demand of professional advice, and retirement choices. Nearly 70% of U.S. gross domestic product is devoted to consumption, making an understanding of the consumer a first order issue in macroeconomics. After all, understanding how households played an important role in the boom and bust cycle that led to the financial crisis and recent great recession is a key metric.

Infrastructure systems provide the services we all rely upon for our day-to-day lives. Through new conceptual work and fresh empirical analysis, this book investigates how financialisation engages with city governance and infrastructure provision, identifying its wider and longer-term implications for urban and regional development, politics and policy. Proposing a more people-oriented approach to answering the question of 'What kind of urban infrastructure, and for whom?', this book addresses the struggles of national and local governments to fund, finance and govern urban infrastructure. It develops new insights to explain the socially and spatially uneven mixing of managerial, entrepreneurial and financialised city governance in austerity and limited decentralisation across England. As urban infrastructure fixes for the London global city-region risk undermining national 'rebalancing' efforts in the UK, city statecraft in the rest of the country is having uneasily to combine speculation, risk-taking and prospective venturing with co-ordination, planning and regulation. This book will be of interest to researchers and scholars in the fields of business and management, economics, geography, planning, and political science. Its conclusions will be valuable to policymakers and practitioners in both the public and private sectors seeking insights into the intersections of financialisation, decentralisation and austerity in the UK, Europe and globally.

'The global financial crisis of 2007-2008 was a wake-up call to all who study and practice in the field of law and economics: traditional approaches are simply inadequate for understanding the co-evolution of the economic and legal systems, and that inadequacy can result in missed opportunities to warn of impending social harm. Atkinson and Paschall demonstrate the value of an alternative approach - law and economics from an evolutionary perspective - that builds on the work of John R. Commons, a leading figure in the field nearly a century ago. In the process, they offer an eye-opening historical account of the role of the state in the economy and provide a vital starting point for future policy discussions.' - Charles J. Whalen, author of Financial Instability and Economic Security after the Great Recession'An indispensable history of business law and regulation, alongside a powerful theory of law and the courts. Glen Atkinson and Stephen P. Paschall give us an evolutionary casebook for the twenty-first century, deeply rooted in the ideas of Veblen, Commons, and other masters of the tradition.' - James K. Galbraith, The University of Texas at Austin 'The language of court documents is notably difficult to understand for people with no legal training. The present volume, a product of fruitful collaboration between a university professor and a lawyer, offers valuable assistance in translating US Supreme Court decisions made in the span of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with respect to economic disputes into the language spoken by evolutionary and institutional economists. As the authors persuasively show, law and economics co-evolve. A much-needed follow-up to and development of John Commons's Legal Foundations of Capitalism! - Anton Oleinik, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada and the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute, Russia Law and economics are interdependent. Using a historical case analysis approach, this book demonstrates how the legal process relates to and is affected by economic circumstances. Glen Atkinson and Stephen P. Paschall examine this co-evolution in the context of the economic development that occurred in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well as the impact of the law on that development. Specifically, the authors explore the development of a national market, the transformation of the corporation, and the conflict between state and federal control over businesses. Their focus on dynamic, integrated systems presents an alternative to mainstream law and economics. The authors apply John R. Commons's approach to three main law and economics issues: the changing relationship between corporations and the State, the application of the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to state and federal regulation of business, and the relationship of antitrust law to industrialization. They provide a valuable linking of law with changing economic circumstances, such as antitrust policy changes and the development of the corporate form. This analytical approach to the practice of law and economics will be of interest to researchers, students, and faculty in law and economics, economic history, constitutional law, economic regulation, public policy, and the sociology of law. Business students and researchers will also find value in this book's presentation of court decisions and exploration of economic development.

Contemporary law and economics has greatly expanded its scope of inquiry as well as its sphere of influence. By focussing specifically on a comparative approach, this Handbook offers new insights for developing current law and economics research. It also provides stimuli for further research, exploring the idea that the comparative method offers a valuable way to enrich law and economics scholarship. With contributions from leading scholars from around the world, the Handbook sets the context by examining the past, present and future of comparative law and economics before addressing this approach to specific issues within the fields of intellectual property, competition, contracts, torts, judicial behaviour, tax, property law, energy markets, regulation and environmental agreements. This topical Handbook will be of great interest and value to scholars and postgraduate students of law and economics, looking for new directions in their research. It will also be a useful reference to policymakers and those working at an institutional level. Contributors: G. Bellantuono, Y.-c. Chang, R.K. Christensen, E. Colombatto, T.F. Cotter, A. Foddis, N. Garoupa, D.J. Gerber, W.J. Gordon, V.P. Hans, K.A. Houghton, K.-C. Huang, R. Ippoliti, A. Jolivet, A. Kreis, E. Marelli, N. Mercuro, T.J. Miceli, H.T. Naughton, I.P.L. Png, G.B. Ramello, F. Revelli, M. Signorelli, H.E. Smith, J. Szmer, T.S. Ulen, Q.-h. Wang, P.K. Yu

A robust manufacturing sector is a necessity and a sufficient condition for any country's human and economic development as it creates employment and alleviates poverty. During this Fourth Industrial Revolution era, there is an urgent need in Africa to optimally utilize the existing resources to support manufacturing or else risk allowing the continent to fall behind in the industrial economy. Innovative strategies are needed that can unlock Africa's manufacturing potential by exploring key areas that may help Africa mature and launch modernized economies that will benefit the developed world's industrial economy. The Handbook of Research on Nurturing Industrial Economy for Africa's Development examines various innovations necessary for Africa's economic development including drivers of the manufacturing economy such as education, agriculture, human capital, science and technological innovations, language, politics, and business environments. The book explores strategies to increase Africa's economic diversity, complexity, productivity, and ultimately competitiveness, and for the continent to realize its manufacturing/industrial potential. Further, chapters focus on African countries' industrial economies in the African context and facilitating the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union's Agenda 2063. This book is a valuable reference tool for government officials, economists, industrialists, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the industrial economic development of Africa.

McLean Sibanda believes that Africa must be deliberate about its economic development and that change requires champions, and importantly, fertile enabling environments.

In Nuts & Bolts you will gain unique perspectives on challenges faced by leaders overseeing a turnaround in any organisation; and the thought processes behind innovation initiatives that yielded value. McLean provides practical insights on innovation and entrepreneurship for Africa’s development through a narrative of his seven years of repositioning Sub-Saharan Africa’s first internationally recognised Science and Technology Park, The Innovation Hub. Included, too, are reflections from entrepreneurs who have all gone on to build successful businesses which will be useful for anyone working on a start-up or innovation, particularly institutions set up to create new products or services. The musings of various successful entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders provide relevant context, inspiration and examples as to how best make use of support programmes provided by incubators and organisations similar to The Innovation Hub.

Nuts & Bolts is a book about hope; it is full of stories about real people and companies who are making a difference, with testimonies of entrepreneurs, experienced ecosystem builders and innovators. It captures deep insights from the considerable time McLean has spent with entrepreneurs and innovators, on the importance of inclusive innovation and entrepreneurship, and provides a mix of global experiences and entrepreneurship narratives that eloquently sketch out the ‘nuts and bolts’ for entrepreneurship and innovation.

In the current scope of economics, the management of client portfolios has become a considerable problem within financial institutions due to the amount of risk that goes into assigning assets. Various algorithmic models exist for solving these portfolio challenges; however, considerable research is lacking that further explains these design problems and provides applicable solutions to these imperative issues. Algorithms for Solving Financial Portfolio Design Problems: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the application of various programming models within the financial engineering field. While highlighting topics such as landscape analysis, breaking symmetries, and linear programming, this publication analyzes the quadratic constraints of current portfolios and provides algorithmic solutions to maximizing the full value of these financial sets. This book is ideally designed for financial strategists, engineers, programmers, mathematicians, banking professionals, researchers, academicians, and students seeking current research on recent mathematical advances within financial engineering.

This book is a must read for those interested in the role cooperatives play in fostering local rural development and alleviating rural poverty. Through conceptual pieces, case studies, essays and empirical work, the papers in this volume illustrate the complex challenges facing cooperatives as they attempt to address market failures, remain cost competitive vis-a-vis transnational agribusinesses, adopt good internal governance practices, navigate the political challenges in their local environments and adapt to and influence the institutional environment in which they operate.' - Murray Fulton, University of Saskatchewan, CanadaAgricultural cooperatives and producer organizations are institutional innovations which have the potential to reduce poverty and improve food security. This book presents a raft of international case studies, from developing and transition countries, to analyse the internal and external challenges that these complex organizations face and the solutions that they have developed. The contributors provide an increased understanding of the transformation of traditional community organizations into modern farmer-owned businesses. They cover issues including: the impact on rural development and inclusiveness, the role of social capital, formal versus informal organizations, democratic participation and member relations, and their role in value chains. Students and scholars will find the book's multidisciplinary approach useful in their research. It will also be of interest to policy-makers seeking to understand the wide diversity of organizational forms and functions. NGOs, donors and governments seeking to support rural developments will benefit from the discussions raised in this book. Contributors: J. Bijman, K. Blokland, M.L. Cook, J. Duncan, A.Groot Kormelinck, M. Hanisch, J. Hellin, G. Hendrikse, Y. Hu, X. Jia, B. Losch, R. Muradian, G. Muricho, D.J. O'Brien, S. Pascucci, D. Pesche, C. Plaisier, R. Ruben, J. Schuurman, B. Shiferaw, S. Singh, K. Wedig