When just a handful of economists predicted the 2008 financial crisis, people should wonder how so many well educated people with enormous datasets and computing power can be so wrong. In this short book Ionut Purica joins a growing number of economists who explore the failings of mainstream economics and propose solutions developed in other disciplines, such as sociology and evolutionary biology. While it might be premature to call for a revolution, Dr. Purica echoes John Maynard Keynes in believing that economic ideas are "dangerous for good or evil." In recent years evil seems to have had the upper hand. "Nonlinear Dynamics of Financial Crises" points to their ability to do good.

The story of banking in twentieth-century Oklahoma is also the story of the Sooner State's first hundred years, as Michael J. Hightower's new book demonstrates. Oklahoma statehood coincided with the Panic of 1907, and both events signaled seismic shifts in state banking practices. Much as Oklahoma banks shed their frontier persona to become more tightly integrated in the national economy, so too was decentralized banking revealed as an anachronism, utterly unsuited to an increasingly global economy. With creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 and subsequent choice of Oklahoma City as the location for a branch bank, frontier banking began yielding to systems commensurate with the needs of the new century.
Through meticulous research and personal interviews with bankers statewide, Hightower has crafted a compelling narrative of Oklahoma banking in the twentieth century. One of the first acts of the new state legislature was to guarantee that depositors in state-chartered banks would never lose a penny. Meanwhile, land and oil speculators and the bankers who funded their dreams were elevating get-rich-quick (and often get-poor-quick) schemes to an art form. In defense of country banks, the Oklahoma Bankers Association dispatched armed vigilantes to stop robbers in their tracks.
Subsequent developments in Oklahoma banking include adaptation to regulations spawned by the Great Depression, the post-World War II boom, the 1980s depression in the oil patch, and changes fostered by rapid-fire advances in technology and communication. The demise of Penn Square Bank offers one of history's few unambiguous lessons, and it warrants two chapters--one on the rise, and one on the fall. Increasing regulation of the banking industry, the survival of family banks, and the resilience of community banking are consistent themes in a state that is only a few generations removed from the frontier.

This book is devoted to investigating the policy design and effectiveness of financial and market-based instruments to promote energy efficiency financing. The concept of this monograph is to present the latest results related to energy efficiency funding schemes, energy efficiency obligations, voluntary agreements, auction mechanisms, and Super Energy Services Companies (Super ESCOs) in major jurisdictions across the world. The book focuses on financial and market-based instruments as they deliver a price signal, which provides an incentive for firms to invest in innovation or implement more energy-efficient technologies and deliver energy savings while minimizing costs. Such instruments can have significant advantages for the government, supporting the fiscal sustainability of the government's energy efficiency efforts, requiring less enforcement than regulation and according the market flexibility to select the most cost-efficient technologies. This book is highly recommended to researchers, policy experts, and business specialists who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview of energy efficiency financing.

This book is about changing the way we do public administration. It is about the wielding of administrative discretion in the implementation of a constitutional power: eminent domain, taking private property for public use. Administrative Discretion in Action: A Narrative of Eminent Domain, emphasizes the normative, constitutional perspective of public administration to study administrators' decision-making process that balances economic, political, and community interests-often in that order. It is about facilitating dialogue between public officials and the public. This book is a tool for interested scholars, practitioners, students, and community members about the dynamic of administration of public affairs in a political context. Grounded in public administration theory, this book utilizes an in-depth, comprehensive analysis of the US Supreme Court's landmark 2005 decision in Kelo v. New London-from the perspective of public officials and community members in the state of Connecticut (home of Kelo case)-to share a balanced narrative.

In The Roots of Western Finance: Power, Ethics, and Social Capital in the Ancient World, Thomas K. Park and James B. Greenberg take an anthropological approach to credit. They suggest that financial activities occur in a complex milieu, in which specific parties, with particular motives, achieve their goals using a form of social, cultural, or economic agency. They examine the imbrication of finance and hidden interests in Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, classical Greece and Rome, the early Judeo-Christian traditions, and the Islamic world to illuminate the ties between social, ethical, and financial institutions. This unique breadth of research provides new perspectives on Mesopotamian ways of incentivizing production through financial arrangements, the source of Egyptian surpluses, linguistics and usury, metrological influences on finance, and the enduring importance of honor and social capital. This book not only illustrates the particular cultural logics that drove these ancient economies, it also depicts how modern society's financial techniques, ethics, and concerns with justice are attributable to a rich multicultural history.

Focusing primarily on the banking system in the United States, this book offers an innovative framework that integrates a depository bank's liquidity and its capital adequacy into a unified notion of funding that helps to explain how the 2007-2008 crisis unfolded, why central banks succeeded in resolving the crisis, and how the conceptual legacy of the crisis and its resolution led to lasting changes in bank funding regulation, including new objective requirements for bank liquidity. To provide a comparative context, the book also examines the funding models of nonbank intermediaries like dealer banks and insurers. This book provides a nuanced understanding of bank funding practices for legal academics interested in banking regulation or corporate finance and helps place prudential regulation and the private law of funding in the context of the banking business model. Business model scholars, financial academics, and bank regulators will appreciate its readable, integrated approach to understanding some of the most current and conceptually challenging aspects of prudential regulation.

Get ready to smile all the way to the bank.No longer are wit and business mutually exclusive. Roger has tapped into something very important: How to make home finance, which is inherently dull, interesting and fun. Roger talks to us, not at us. He shows us how to choose the right mortgage while serving up the facts and rules with a generous helping of humor. One might even call it business entertainment. You will quickly learn that the mortgage industry is not the 30 year fixed loan. It is just one of the loans available and not the best one in any circumstance. You will understand, finally, what the phrase "30 years is a sentence, not a loan. Prepare yourself to learn and laugh your way through this thoroughly enjoyable book

Sustainable and inclusive growth in emerging Asian economies requires high levels of public investment in areas such as infrastructure, education, health, and social services. The increasing complexity and regional diversity of these investment needs, together with the trend of democratization, has led to fiscal decentralization being implemented in many Asian economies. This book takes stock of some major issues regarding fiscal decentralization, including expenditure and revenue assignments, transfer programs, and the sustainability of local government finances, and develops important findings and policy recommendations. The book's expert contributors assess the current state of the allocation of expenditures and revenues between central and local governments in emerging Asian economies, and discuss their major strengths and weaknesses. They also present relevant case studies of experiences and reform measures related to strengthening and monitoring local government finance, including the implications of expanded fiscal capacity for infrastructure investment and other public spending. Covering the major Asian economies of the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, and Japan, among others, the book focuses on the economic incentives of transfer schemes, how intergovernmental fiscal equalization works, and how subnational government borrowing regulations could influence debt dynamics and the fiscal deficits of local governments. This book's insightful analysis will be essential reading for policymakers in Asian economies, and academics and researchers in the areas of economic development, public finance, and fiscal policy as well as development aid officials, multilateral banks, and NGOs. Contributors include: S. Barrios, S.-i. Bessho, P. Chakraborty, P. Das, Z. Fan, R.K. Goel, S. Li, D. Martinez-Lopez, J. Martinez-Vazquez, P.J. Morgan, A. Nasution, J.W. Saunoris, P. Smoke, L.Q. Trinh, V. Vulovic, G. Wan, N. Yoshino, Q. Zhang

Many students want an introduction to finance. Those who are quantitatively-oriented learners can benefit in particular from an introduction that puts more emphasis on mathematics and graphical presentations than on verbal descriptions. By illustrating core finance facts and concepts through equations and graphical material, Finance: A Quantitative Introduction can help people studying business management, marketing, accounting, and other subjects. By using few lengthy verbal explanations and many illustrations, it can teach readers quickly and efficiently.

Many students want an introduction to finance. Those who are quantitatively-oriented learners can benefit in particular from an introduction that puts more emphasis on mathematics and graphical presentations than on verbal descriptions. By illustrating core finance facts and concepts through equations and graphical material, Finance: A Quantitative Introduction can help people studying business management, marketing, accounting, and other subjects. By using few lengthy verbal explanations and many illustrations, it can teach readers quickly and efficiently.

This book contributes to the current debates on the shadow economy and related issues of tax evasion and corruption. The approach taken here is one that will develop a better understanding of these related issues, which are increasingly seen as impediments to country competitiveness and economic growth. Economists and policymakers are increasingly focused on how the shadow economy operates. The contributors discuss how effective corporate governance may help to reduce both the occurrence and effects of illegal activities. The book begins by considering institutional governance and how issues such as economic growth and development can be better understood by gaining a deeper understanding of the decision-making process. The importance of collective persuasion and collective decision-making in an institutional context is illustrated. The remainder of the work details a series of empirical studies outlining the role of governance and institutional capacity in assessing economic performance, the role of political competition in reducing corruption and measures of, and influences on, corruption in different countries around the world. Institutions such as the WTO, World Bank and the IMF will find much to engage them in this book as will policy makers in government and research policy agencies. It will also hold great appeal to academics (postgraduate and above) in the fields of political economy, economic development and international economics.

In this book, James B. Greenberg and Thomas K. Park take an anthropological approach to the economic history of the past one thousand years and define credit as a potentially transformative force involving inequalties, rather than an exchange of equal valued commodites. Guiding readers through the medieval period all the way to the modern day, and tracking through the Mediterranean and Europe, Greenberg and Park reorient financial history and position social capital and ethical thought at its center. They examine the multicultural origins of credit and finance, from banking to credit cards and predatory lending, and bringing us up to date, they explore the forces that led to the collapse of global credit markets in 2007-2008. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, history, economics, religion, and sociology.