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Books > Business & Economics > Finance & accounting > Finance
An Economist Best Book of the Year A Financial Times Best Book of
the Year A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year A ProMarket Best
Political Economy Book of the Year One of The Week's Ten Best
Business Books of the Year A cutting-edge look at how accelerating
financial change, from the end of cash to the rise of
cryptocurrencies, will transform economies for better and worse. We
think we've seen financial innovation. We bank from laptops and buy
coffee with the wave of a phone. But these are minor miracles
compared with the dizzying experiments now underway around the
globe, as businesses and governments alike embrace the
possibilities of new financial technologies. As Eswar Prasad
explains, the world of finance is at the threshold of major
disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states, and
indeed all of us. The transformation of money will fundamentally
rewrite how ordinary people live. Above all, Prasad foresees the
end of physical cash. The driving force won't be phones or credit
cards but rather central banks, spurred by the emergence of
cryptocurrencies to develop their own, more stable digital
currencies. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies themselves will evolve
unpredictably as global corporations like Facebook and Amazon join
the game. The changes will be accompanied by snowballing
innovations that are reshaping finance and have already begun to
revolutionize how we invest, trade, insure, and manage risk. Prasad
shows how these and other changes will redefine the very concept of
money, unbundling its traditional functions as a unit of account,
medium of exchange, and store of value. The promise lies in greater
efficiency and flexibility, increased sensitivity to the needs of
diverse consumers, and improved market access for the unbanked. The
risk is instability, lack of accountability, and erosion of
privacy. A lucid, visionary work, The Future of Money shows how to
maximize the best and guard against the worst of what is to come.
This book assesses the role of the doctrine of insurable interest
within modern insurance law by examining its rationales and
suggesting how shortcomings could be fixed. Over the centuries,
English law on insurable interest - a combination of statutes and
case law - has become complex and unclear. Other jurisdictions have
relaxed, or even abolished, the requirement for an insurable
interest. Yet, the UK insurance industry has overwhelmingly
supported the retention of the doctrine of insurable interest. This
book explores whether the traditional justifications for the
doctrine - the policy against wagering, the prevention of moral
hazard and the doctrine's relationship with the indemnity principle
- still stand up to scrutiny and argues that, far from being
obsolete, they have acquired new significance in the global
financial markets and following the liberalisation of gambling. It
is also argued that the doctrine of insurable interest is an
integral part of a system of insurance contract law rules and
market practice. Rather than rejecting the doctrine, the book
recommends a recalibration of insurable interest to afford better
pre-contractual transparency to a proposer as to the suitability of
the policy to his or her interest in the subject-matter to be
insured. Providing a powerful defence for the retention of
insurable interest, this book will appeal to both academics and
practitioners working in the field of insurance law.
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