This book is one of the first historical revisions of the Latin American debt crisis of 1982, exploring recently disclosed archival sources for a number of creditor and debtor institutions. It fills a gap on the national and international historiography on international finance in the 1970s and the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s. The domestic banking approach in revisiting the 1982 financial crisis is a main distinction of this work and the consequences of the involvement of Mexican banks in international finance a major contribution to the literature. Beyond its thoroughly international approach, the book addresses a broad array of disciplines: financial history, political economy, international relations and business history. While the focus is on financial crisis, its implications extend to current regulatory and financial policy relative to crisis and non-crisis matters. In addition to providing a template for understanding other instances of financial crisis, the book points the way to research in a wide range of additional questions. These include the economic role of foreign capital, the transmission of financial crisis, and the decision criteria of states during crises. It also offers a strong example of the importance of politics in resolving economic problems. Because of this, the book will be of interest to historians, economists and political scientists.

Spurred by the success of the first stress test of US banks toward the end of the global economic crisis in 2009, stress testing of large financial institutions has become the cornerstone of banking supervision worldwide. The aim of the tests is to determine which banks are adequately capitalized under severe economic shocks and to order corrective measures for those that are vulnerable. In Banking's Final Exam, one of the world's leading experts on banking regulation concludes that the tests administered on both sides of the Atlantic suffer from fundamental weaknesses, leading to a false sense of reassurance about the safety and soundness of the banking system. Some weaknesses can be corrected within the existing bank-capital regime, but others will require bold reforms-including higher minimum capital requirements for the largest and most systemically-important banks. The banking industry is likely to resist these reforms, but this book explains why their objections do not hold water.

Robert Fritzsch provides an institutional economic analysis of the Great Recession. The author shows that institutions matter as determinants of crisis resilience - however in a different way than predicted by the prominent theories of Olson (1982) and North, Wallis, Weingast (2009), as the crisis was most severe in developed countries with democratic political institutions, rule of law and restrained regulations. The empirical results support theoretical predictions only within the sub-group of developed countries, where rule of law and restrained regulations show a positive association with crisis resilience.

John Taylor is one of the foremost economists of our generation. His ideas were implemented in central banks across the world during the period of price stability, economic growth and financial stability that followed the 1980s. This period culminated in the financial crisis of 2008 which was followed by a very slow recovery which, seven years on, can hardly be said to be complete. This book presents Taylor's view of the financial crisis and its aftermath.Taylor argues that deviating from strict policy rules, both before and since the crisis, contributed to the events of 2008-13 and, especially, the very slow recovery in national income after the financial crisis. Furthermore, in other areas of government activity, such as regulation and law-making more generally, instability is being created, which is very bad for the economy.

In the fall of 2008, the United States was plunged into a financial crisis more severe than any since the Great Depression. As banks collapsed and the state scrambled to organize one of the largest transfers of wealth in history, many--including economists and financial experts--were shocked by the speed at which events unfolded.

In this new book, John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff offer a bold analysis of the financial meltdown, how it developed, and the implications for the future. They examine the specifics of the housing bubble and the credit crunch as well as situate current events within a broader crisis of monopoly-finance capitalism--one that has been gestating for several decades. It is the "real" productive economy's tendency toward stagnation, they argue, that creates a need for capital to find ways to profitably invest its surplus. But rather than invest in socially useful projects that would benefit the vast majority, capital has constructed a financialized "casino" economy that neglects social needs and, as has become increasingly clear, is fatally unstable. Written over a two-year period immediately prior to the onset of the crisis, this timely and illuminating book is necessary reading for all those who wish to understand the current situation, how we got here, and where we are heading.

Why the global recession is in danger of becoming another Great Depression, and how we can stop it

When the United States stopped backing dollars with gold in 1968, the nature of money changed. All previous constraints on money and credit creation were removed and a new economic paradigm took shape. Economic growth ceased to be driven by capital accumulation and investment as it had been since before the Industrial Revolution. Instead, credit creation and consumption began to drive the economic dynamic. In "The New Depression: The Breakdown of the Paper Money Economy," Richard Duncan introduces an analytical framework, The Quantity Theory of Credit, that explains all aspects of the calamity now unfolding: its causes, the rationale for the government's policy response to the crisis, what is likely to happen next, and how those developments will affect asset prices and investment portfolios.

In his previous book, "The Dollar Crisis" (2003), Duncan explained why a severe global economic crisis was inevitable given the flaws in the post-Bretton Woods international monetary system, and now he's back to explain what's next. The economic system that emerged following the abandonment of sound money requires credit growth to survive. Yet the private sector can bear no additional debt and the government's creditworthiness is deteriorating rapidly. Should total credit begin to contract significantly, this New Depression will become a New Great Depression, with disastrous economic and geopolitical consequences. That outcome is not inevitable, and this book describes what must be done to prevent it.Presents a fascinating look inside the financial crisis and how the New Depression is poised to become a New Great DepressionIntroduces a new theoretical construct, The Quantity Theory of Credit, that is the key to understanding not only the developments that led to the crisis, but also to understanding how events will play out in the years aheadOffers unique insights from the man who predicted the global economic breakdown

Alarming but essential reading, "The New Depression" explains why the global economy is teetering on the brink of falling into a deep and protracted depression, and how we can restore stability.

This innovative analysis investigates a complex issue of tremendous economic and political importance: what makes some countries vulnerable to banking crises, while others emerge unscathed? Banks on the Brink explains why some countries are more vulnerable to banking crises than others. Copelovitch and Singer highlight the effects of two variables in combination: foreign capital inflows and the relative prominence of securities markets in the domestic financial system. Foreign capital is the fuel for banks' potentially dangerous behavior, and banks are more likely to take on excessive risks when operating in a financial system with large securities markets. The book analyzes over thirty years of data and provides historical case studies of two key countries, Canada and Germany, each of which explores how political decisions in the 19th and early-20th centuries continue to affect financial stability today. The analyses in this book have crucial policy implications, identifying potential regulations and policies that can work to protect banking systems against future crises.

If the financial crisis has taught us anything, it is that Americans save too little, spend too much, and borrow excessively. What can we learn from East Asian and European countries that have fostered enduring cultures of thrift over the past two centuries? "Beyond Our Means" tells for the first time how other nations aggressively encouraged their citizens to save by means of special savings institutions and savings campaigns. The U.S. government, meanwhile, promoted mass consumption and reliance on credit, culminating in the global financial meltdown.

Many economists believe people save according to universally rational calculations, saving the most in their middle years as they plan for retirement, and saving the least in welfare states. In reality, Europeans save at high rates despite generous welfare programs and aging populations. Americans save little, despite weaker social safety nets and a younger population. Tracing the development of such behaviors across three continents from the nineteenth century to today, this book highlights the role of institutions and moral suasion in shaping habits of saving and spending. It shows how the encouragement of thrift was not a relic of indigenous traditions but a modern movement to confront rising consumption. Around the world, messages to save and spend wisely confronted citizens everywhere--in schools, magazines, and novels. At the same time, in America, businesses and government normalized practices of living beyond one's means.

Transnational history at its most compelling, "Beyond Our Means" reveals why some nations save so much and others so little.

What effects will the current economic crisis have on the long-term development of our societies? What does the future hold in store when we emerge from the crisis? These two questions lie at the heart of this important new book by the leading French sociologist Alain Touraine. In an era dominated by the global economy and the triumph of individualism, our society has broken away from the old model of integration in place since the industrial revolution. We no longer see ourselves as players in an economic system around which every aspect of society is ordered but rather as individuals with our own rights, capable of creating our own lives in a world in which cultural values prevail. The financial crisis and the growing autonomy of speculative and financial imperatives have exacerbated the rift between the economy and society and could push this long-term tendency in either of two directions. On the one hand, individuals who find themselves unemployed, impoverished and stripped of their savings may feel increasingly excluded and incapable of reacting politically, which would explain the silence of many victims of the crisis. On the other hand, individuals could also find themselves transformed into social actors who are defined increasingly in moral and universal terms, in which case the crisis could help to precipitate a long-term cultural evolution. We are facing a future as yet undecided, a future hovering between catastrophe and radical reform. This book explores the factors that could tip the balance.

This edited collection comprehensively addresses the widespread regulatory challenges uncovered and changes introduced in financial markets following the 2007-2008 crisis, suggesting strategies by which financial institutions can comply with stringent new regulations and adapt to the pressures of close supervision while responsibly managing risk. It covers all important commercial banking risk management topics, including market risk, counterparty credit risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, fair lending risk, model risk, stress test, and CCAR from practical aspects. It also covers major components of enterprise risk management, a modern capital requirement framework, and the data technology used to help manage risk. Each chapter is written by an authority who is actively engaged with large commercial banks, consulting firms, auditing firms, regulatory agencies, and universities. This collection will be a trusted resource for anyone working in or studying the commercial banking industry.

This book provides a uniquely comprehensive explanation of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and resulting scholarly research in the context of building an agenda for reform. With the clarity provided by almost a decade of hindsight and a careful eye toward planning for prevention, Elson guides readers through both historical fact and scholarly interpretation, highlighting areas where careful critique of and changes in the international financial architecture and the mainstream macroeconomic paradigm can promote greater financial stability in the future. Given the great public concern over growing income and wealth inequality, the book examines their links to the increased financialization of the economy, both prior to and since the crisis. Finally, the book identifies a number of lessons that need to be recognized if adequate and effective reforms are to be introduced to avoid a financial crisis of similar magnitude in the future. Comprehensive enough for university students and sufficiently innovative for financial policymakers, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in understanding not just where the crisis has brought us, but what key economists have said about it and how we can strengthen our financial system oversight to deal with the continuing challenges of globalization.

Since 2008, Greece has been at the centre of European current affairs due to the financial and economic crisis. However, it should not be forgotten that before the current crisis the political upheavals of the early 1990s and the collapse of Marxist-inspired regimes had already radically transformed the face of the country. These transformations have been seen as a return of the Balkans' question, raising issues of border disputes and migration, minorities and national inclusion. They have had far-reaching consequences on the relations between Greek society and its peripheries, and what some have deemed to be its destabilising diversity. In this context, the material presented in this book examines the strengthening of discourses of belonging which draw legitimacy from a glorification of the past and tradition. The fieldwork carried out over the past 15 years on the fringes of Greece has focused on groups who were stigmatised and distanced from standard definitions of Greekness. It provides an original perspective on the changes that the country has undergone in recent decades. The question of the nation-state's future is raised through close observation on the local scale, leading to a debate about the relationship between areal and reticular territory within the framework of globalisation. This book also aims to provide non-Francophone readers with access to research carried out on these issues in France, shifting the focus of Balkan Anglophone specialists for whom French publications remain a distant province.

'One of the clearest and most thorough statements of an argument often made about the country: that its government has relied on constant stimulus to keep growth strong, an addiction that is bound to backfire. Second, he comes closer than any previous writer to covering the Chinese economy as Michael Lewis, the hugely popular author of The Big Short, might do. His analysis is informed but accessible, animated by anecdotes and characters, some colourful, some verging on tragic . . . McMahon is among the most compelling of the many analysts who conclude that China's economic miracle will end painfully' The Economist The world has long considered China a juggernaut of economic strength, but since the global financial crisis, the country's economy has ballooned in size, complexity, and risk. Once dominated by four state-owned banks, the nation's financial system is a tangle of shadow banking entities, informal financial institutions, and complex corporate funding arrangements that threaten growth, stability, and reform efforts. The country has accumulated so much debt so quickly that economists increasingly predict a financial crisis that could make 'Brexit' or Greece's economic ruin seem minor, and could undermine China's ascent as a superpower. Earlier this year, President Xi Jinping issued an urgent call for reform that gives the country until 2020 to transform its economy - a vaguely-defined objective that most economists agree is unrealistic. Whether or not China will be responsible for the next global recession, as some experts forecast, the fate of its economy will have far-reaching consequences for the rest of the world. Yet the inner workings of China's financial system are still very much a mystery to most outsiders. Now more than ever, as the country's slowing economy is being felt around the globe, it is essential to understand how China allowed its economy to become so mired in debt. China's Great Wall of Debt is a penetrating examination of the country's opaque financial system and the complex factors - demographic shifts; urbanization; industrialization; a pervasive over-reliance on debt-fueled investments - that have brought the country to the brink of crisis. Anchored by stories of China's cities and its people; from factory workers and displaced farmers to government officials and entrepreneurs, the narrative will take readers inside the country's ghost cities, zombie companies, start-ups, and regulatory institutions as McMahon explains how things got so bad, why fixing the problems is so hard, and what the economic outlook means for China and for the rest of us.

Conventional wisdom says that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) functions as the de facto international lender of last resort (ILLR) for the global financial system. However, that premise is incomplete. Brother, Can You Spare a Billion? explores how the U.S. has for decades regularly complemented the Fund's ILLR role by selectively providing billions of dollars in emergency loans to foreign economies in crisis. Why would the U.S. ever put national financial resources at risk to "bail out" foreign countries? McDowell argues that the U.S. has been compelled to provide such rescues unilaterally when it believes the IMF's multilateral response is too slow or too small to protect vital U.S. economic interests. Through a combination of historical case studies and statistical analysis, McDowell uncovers the defensive motives behind U.S. decisions to provide global liquidity from the 1960s through the 2008 global financial crisis. Moving beyond conventional wisdom, this book paints a complete picture of how international financial crises have been managed and highlights the unique role the U.S. has played in stabilizing the world economy in troubled times.

One of the lessons learned from the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-9 is that minimum capital requirements are a necessary but inadequate safeguard for the stability of an intermediary. Despite the high levels of capitalization of many banks before the crisis, they too experienced serious difficulties due to insufficient liquidity buffers. Thus, for the first time, after the GFC regulators realized that liquidity risk can jeopardize the orderly functioning of a bank and, in some cases, its survival. Previously, the risk did not receive the same attention by regulators at the international level as other types of risk including credit, market, and operational risks. The GFC promoted liquidity risk to a significant place in regulatory reform, introducing uniform international rules and best practices. The literature has studied the potential effects of the new liquidity rules on the behaviour of banks, the financial system, and the economy as a whole. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of the bank liquidity crisis that occurred during the GFC, of the liquidity regulatory reform introduced by the Basel Committee with the Basel III Accord, and its implications both at the micro and macroeconomic levels. Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore contributed to the funding of this research project and its publication.

One of the most salient features of the 2007-9 global financial crisis was the role played by global banking and multinational banks in transmitting international financial shocks and maintaining credit stability in domestic and international financial markets. This edited volume on "Global Banking, Financial Markets and Crises" contains original papers that examine various issues concerning the changing role of global banks during crisis periods. The papers in this volume also address the impact of global financial crises on multinational banking, domestic and international financial markets, and emerging economies. Particular emphasis is given on the regional experiences of cross-border banking, domestic and global financial market integration, portfolio investment, cross asset market spillovers, cross country crisis contagion, monetary policy transmission mechanism, and the role of foreign banks during crisis periods compared to non-crisis periods in various advanced countries as well as emerging economies. This volume also presents various important policy implications and lessons from recent global financial crises.

How does one distinguish between European Union investments that improve welfare and those that create economic malaise? Funding the Greek Crisis: The European Union, Cohesion Policies, and the Great Recession explores the sources of the Greek Crisis that lie primarily in EU policies that appeared to have worked better for other countries but not for Greece. Without overly simplifying the Greek condition, it provides insights into policies the countries of the euro area may need to implement in order to ensure collective cohesion and individual success. Arguing that EU preferences for autonomous investments discouraged organic development with lasting implications, Funding the Greek Crisis sheds new light on the nature of regional competitiveness and public economics.

This is a book with many benefits. Davidson explains the importance of the market economy, and unveils how and why global financial crises occur when the liquidity of financial assets traded in the market, suddenly collapse. 70 years after Keynes' death, in another era of financial crisis and economic slump, Keynes' ideas have made a comeback within economic circles. Yet these ideas are not represented in contemporary government policy decisions. This book explains why Keynes' ideas need to be used by political parties in order to restore global prosperity and close the gap between income and wealth inequality. This book will is essential reading for researchers, practitioners, students and the wider public interested in an economic understanding of today's global economic problems.

A penetrating critique tracing how under-regulated trading between European and U.S. banks led to the 2008 financial crisis--with a prescription for preventing another meltdown There have been numerous books examining the 2008 financial crisis from either a U.S. or European perspective. Tamim Bayoumi is the first to explain how the Euro crisis and U.S. housing crash were, in fact, parasitically intertwined. Starting in the 1980s, Bayoumi outlines the cumulative policy errors that undermined the stability of both the European and U.S. financial sectors, highlighting the catalytic role played by European mega banks that exploited lax regulation to expand into the U.S. market and financed unsustainable bubbles on both continents. U.S. banks increasingly sold sub-par loans to under-regulated European and U.S. shadow banks and, when the bubbles burst, the losses whipsawed back to the core of the European banking system. A much-needed, fresh look at the origins of the crisis, Bayoumi's analysis concludes that policy makers are ignorant of what still needs to be done both to complete the cleanup and to prevent future crises.

This book theoretically and empirically explores why Japanese banks engaged in seemingly contradictory behaviors in the 1990s, namely, the credit crunch and evergreening, i.e., inefficient additional lending. A credit crunch occurs when banks are unwilling to finance good and efficient projects. Evergreening implies that banks reluctantly lend additional money to poorly performing and financially vulnerable firms. The authors hypothesize that these practices stemmed from violation of the absolute priority rule (APR) by creditors, thus making it possible to explain this seemingly contradictory banking behavior in a consistent way. In Japan, the APR has often been violated legally by courts and some governmental acts. Examples from the 1990s involve legal abuse in the form of short-term tenancy protection (tanki chinshaku ken) and political intervention in the liquidation of Housing Loan Companies, or Ju-sen. The Supreme Court of Japan has issued critical decisions leading to serious violations of APR in the early 1990s. Evidence provided here supports theoretical results. Empirical testing for a significant difference in banking behavior before and after the Court decision using data from Japanese firms in the 1980s and 1990s found that theoretical arguments were empirically supportable in the last half of the 1980s and through the 1990s. Finally, based on their analysis, from the theoretical point of view the authors consider the optimal legal scheme to achieve the best assessment of initial and additional lending in light of the legal reform of the 2000s.

How can a banking system become so unregulated that it offers a gold credit card to a dog? For Channel 4's Economics Editor Faisal Islam, these are examples of nations, institutions, and individuals crossing the 'default line', the point at which the optimism of economic boom flips into fiscal madness. Having exposed the Icelandic banking crisis, watched Lehman Bros crash, investigated emerging economies in India and China and interviewed a host of key international players from the Governor of the Bank of England to the head of the the Chinese sovereign wealth fund, Faisal Islam is the perfect guide to the global economic crisis. Juxtaposing vivid anecdotes with high-level exclusive interviews and trenchant economic analysis, THE DEFAULT LINE is a really accessible way of understanding the economic shape of the contemporary world.

This work executes a unique transdisciplinary methodology building on the author's previous book, A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save it (Pluto, 2010), which was the first peer-reviewed study to establish a social science framework for the integrated analysis of crises across climate, energy, food, economic, terror and the police state. Since the 2008 financial crash, the world has witnessed an unprecedented outbreak of social unrest in every major continent. Beginning with the birth of the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring, the eruption of civil disorder continues to wreak havoc unpredictably from Greece to Ukraine, from China to Thailand, from Brazil to Turkey, and beyond. Yet while policymakers and media observers have raced to keep up with events, they have largely missed the biophysical triggers of this new age of unrest - the end of the age of cheap fossil fuels, and its multiplying consequences for the Earth's climate, industrial food production, and economic growth. This book for the first time develops an empirically-ground theoretical model of the complex interaction between biophysical processes and geopolitical crises, demonstrated through the analysis of a wide range of detailed case studies of historic, concurrent and probable state failures in the Middle East, Northwest Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Europe and North America. Geopolitical crises across these regions, Ahmed argues, are being driven by the proliferation of climate, food and economic crises which have at their root the common denominator of a fundamental and permanent disruption in the energy basis of industrial civilization. This inevitable energy transition, which will be completed well before the close of this century, entails a paradigm shift in the organization of civilization. Yet for this shift to result in a viable new way of life will require a fundamental epistemological shift recognizing humanity's embeddedness in the natural world. For this to be achieved, the stranglehold of conventional models achieved through the hegemony of establishment media reporting - dominated by fossil fuel interests - must be broken. While geopolitics cannot be simplistically reduced to the biophysical, this book shows that international relations today can only be understood by recognizing the extent to which the political is embedded in the biophysical. Although the book offers a rigorous scientific analysis, it is written in a clean, journalistic style to ensure readability and accessibility to a general audience. It will contain a large number of graphical illustrations concerning oil production data, population issues, the food price index, economic growth and debt, and other related issues to demonstrate the interconnections and correlations across key sectors.

The politics of major banking crises has been transformed since the nineteenth century. Analyzing extensive historical and contemporary evidence, Chwieroth and Walter demonstrate that the rising wealth of the middle class has generated 'great expectations' among voters that the government is responsible for the protection of this wealth. Crisis policy interventions have become more extensive and costly - and their political aftermaths far more fraught - because of democratic governance, not in spite of it. Using data from numerous democracies over two centuries, and detailed studies of Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States, this book breaks new ground in exploring the consequences of the emerging mass political demand for financial stabilization. It shows why great expectations have induced rising financial fragility, more financial sector bailouts and rising political instability and discontent in contemporary democracies, providing new insight to anyone concerned with contemporary policy and politics.

In the wake of the Great Recession, Europe's economy has stagnated to a considerable degree-greater even than that of the United States. Forecasts suggest an abysmal annual growth rate of about one percent over the next five years, and it now appears that Europe's enviable structural features, that is, their superior social safety net, leading educational facilities, and outstanding infrastructure will be in jeopardy if higher levels of growth cannot be achieved in the mid- to long-term. Several European countries have sought to stimulate growth through monetary or fiscal means, but in the view of some economists, this focus on the demand side ignores the need to address supply issues. In Europe's Growth Challenge, Anders Aslund and Simeon Djankov show how countries in Central and Eastern Europe have recently adopted economic policies that could prove useful in expanding business and economic activity in Western and Southern Europe. These include reducing the financial role of the state, adjusting tax systems, improving the environment for startups, and easing controls over labor markets and migration policies. The Netherlands, they note, has already introduced humane pension reforms that could be adopted more broadly on the continent. The authors also outline how sectoral changes in the service market, high-tech development, and energy markets, more successfully pursued in the U.S., could profit many European countries. Authors Anders Aslund and Simeon Djankov conclude with a call for crucial continental institutional reforms at the European Commission of the European Union, the European Parliament, and the European Council of Ministers. If enacted, this bold program may be just what is needed to reinvigorate the slumping European economy.