You Spend It. You Save It. You Never Have Enough of It. But how does it actually work? Understanding cash, currencies and the financial system is vital for making sense of what is going on in our world, especially now. Since the 2008 financial crisis, money has rarely been out of the headlines. Central banks have launched extraordinary policies, like quantitative easing or negative interest rates. New means of payment, like Bitcoin and Apple Pay, are changing how we interact with money and how governments and corporations keep track of our spending. Radical politicians in the US and UK are urging us to transform our financial system and make it the servant of social justice. And yet, if you stopped for a moment and asked yourself whether you really understand how it works, would you honestly be able to say 'yes'? In Money in One Lesson, Gavin Jackson, a lead writer for the Financial Times, specialising in economics, business and public policy, answers the most important questions to clarify for the reader what money is and how it shapes our societies. With brilliant storytelling, Jackson provides a basic understanding of the most important element of our everyday lives. Drawing on stories like the 1970s Irish Banking Strike to show what money actually is, and the Great Inflation of West Africa's cowrie shell money to explain how it keeps its value, Money in One Lesson demystifies the world of finance and explains how societies, both past and present, are forever entwined with monetary matters.

The financial crisis, which originated in developed country financial markets, quickly spread to developing countries. Governments and central banksthough taking many and costly measures were powerless to stop the global economic meltdown, as economies across the globe went into recession. The depth of the financial crisis means that the world economy is in unchartered territory. How do we restore robust growth and prevent another crisis? This book aims to systematically understand current major problems in the financial system, its governance, and in its links to global economic imbalances. It explains how both market actors and regulators behavior, and the prevailing ideology of extreme financial liberalization and deregulation, contributed to the financial crisis. This highly topical book focuses on the transparency and regulatory measures that are necessary to restore confidence in the financial system, to ensure that the financial system performs the roles that it should perform within both developing and developed countries, and to make a recurrence less likely. The book also describes reforms in the global financial architecture that might make the global financial system more stable and more equitable. The book presents sometimes radical, but specific, pragmatic, and politically feasible proposals to try to ensure a more stable, equitable, and growing world economy. Contributions come from both developed and developing countries and are written by leading authorities in their field, including senior nationalas well as internationalpolicy makers, practitioners from the private sector, and leading academics.

The worldwide financial crisis has wrought deep changes in capital and labor markets, old-age retirement systems, and household retirement and consumption patterns. Confidence has been shaken in both the traditional defined benefit and defined contribution plans. Around the world, plan sponsors, fiduciaries, policymakers, and households have gained a new awareness of retirement risk. When pressed to reform post-crisis, many would recommend enhancing financial advice for plan participants, emphasizing flexibility and the positive effect of working another one or two years to make up for investment losses in the downturn. Adding to this is the continuing need for financial education, essential as the retirement system moves increasingly toward personal account pensions. Perhaps most important of all is the need for greater understanding of risk throughout the retirement security system, along with new approaches to re-engineering retirement pensions. This volume explores the lessons to be learnt for retirement planning and long-term financial security in view of the massive shocks to stock markets, labour markets, and pension plans resulting from the financial crisis. It aims to rethink retirement in the new economic era, including the resilience of defined contribution plans and how defined benefit plans reacted to the financial crisis.

A rare analytical look at the financial crisis using simple analysis

The economic crisis that began in 2008 revealed the numerous problems in our financial system, from the way mortgage loans were produced to the way Wall Street banks leveraged themselves. Curiously enough, however, most of the reasons for the banking collapse are very similar to the reasons that Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), the largest hedge fund to date, collapsed in 1998. "The Crisis of Crowding" looks at LTCM in greater detail, with new information, for a more accurate perspective, examining how the subsequent hedge funds started by Meriwether and former partners were destroyed again by the lapse of judgement in allowing Lehman Brothers to fail.

Covering the lessons that were ignored during LTCM's collapse but eventually connected to the financial crisis of 2008, the book presents a series of lessons for hedge funds and financial markets, including touching upon the circle of greed from homeowners to real estate agents to politicians to Wall Street.Guides the reader through the real story of Long-Term Capital Management with accurate descriptions, previously unpublished data, and interviewsDescribes the lessons that hedge funds, as well as the market, should have learned from LTCM's collapseExplores how the financial crisis and LTCM are a global phenomena rooted in failures to account for risk in crowded spaces with leverageExplains why quantitative finance is essential for every financial institution from risk management to valuation modeling to algorithmic tradingIs filled with simple quantitative analysis about the financial crisis, from the Quant Crisis of 2007 to the failure of Lehman Brothers to the Flash Crash of 2010

A unique blend of storytelling and sound quantitative analysis, "The Crisis of Crowding" is one of the first books to offer an analytical look at the financial crisis rather than just an account of what happened. Also included are a layman's guide to the Dodd-Frank rules and what it means for the future, as well as an evaluation of the Fed's reaction to the crisis, QE1, QE2, and QE3.

Strategy management has always been a crucial business aspect that a company must understand to remain successful in the business world. However, there are a number of different approaches that a company can employ in order to differentiate themselves from thecompetition. Knowledge Management for Competitive Advantage During Economic Crisis brings together the various approaches that affect the superiority of a company's organizational performance and the gains they can make over their competitors. By focusing on concepts such as organizational learning and intellectual capital, this book is an indispensable reference source for researchers, practitioners, graduate students, and business managers interested in understanding what approaches are necessary to ensure superior organizational performance.

This fascinating volume offers a comprehensive synthesis of the events, causes and outcomes of the major financial crises from 1929 to the present day. Beginning with an overview of the global financial system, Sara Hsu presents both theoretical and empirical evidence to explain the roots of financial crises and financial instability in general. She then provides a thorough breakdown of a number of major crises of the past century, both in the United States and around the world. Hsu's thorough and ambitious survey begins with the Great Depression of 1929, the first crisis created within the institutions of our current financial system, and moves through the aftermath of the Depression in the 1930s and 1940s, the inter-crisis period of the 1950s through the 1970s, and the emerging market debt default crisis of the 1980s. From there, she tackles major crises in specific countries from the 1990s on, including those in Mexico, Asia (Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia), Russia, Brazil and Argentina, as well as the Great Recession of 2008. The book concludes with a chapter detailing insightful policy recommendations for preventing future crises. Students and professors of economic history, financial and regulatory economics and banking will find this an invaluable resource, both for its comprehensive historical approach and its thoughtful look toward the future of the global economy.

Despite the global financial crisis in 2007-2008, neoliberalism has remained dominant and even informs the responses to the crisis. In his masterful analysis, Damien Cahill demonstrates that this resilience is due to neoliberalism being firmly embedded within wider class relations, institutions and ideological norms. And yet, as Cahill also argues, progressive change is possible provided it is based on large-scale political mobilisation. I most strongly recommend this book for reading.' - Andreas Bieler, Nottingham University, UK'Damien Cahill has emerged as one of the most penetrating social scientists on the politics of neoliberalism in the advanced capitalist societies. In his new book, he brings his many years of pouring over policy documents to examine neoliberalism in the new 'age of austerity'. The result is an impressive survey of the history and debates about neoliberal policies. But more powerful is Cahill's hard-headed analysis of why neoliberalism may not simply be in decline, despite the great social disasters it has produced: the 'Great Recession' of 2008 only being the most spectacular. Cahill insists on what many are only beginning to realize: that a new progressive political economy will not emerge as a result of the 'failure of neoliberal ideas', but only when an alternative vision of society fuses with new organized forms of social resistance.' - Greg Albo, York University, Toronto, Canada When the global financial crisis hit in 2007, many commentators thought it heralded the end of neoliberalism. Several years later, neoliberalism continues to dominate policy making. This book sets out why such commentators got it so wrong, and why neoliberalism remains so durable in the face of crisis. This book is the first comprehensive critique of the dominant 'ideas-centered' approach to understanding neoliberalism. It offers an alternative view of neoliberalism as a policy regime that is embedded in institutions, class relations and ideological norms. Damien Cahill argues that the socially embedded nature of neoliberalism explains why policy makers continue to use neoliberal policies as forms of crisis response, even though the crisis itself resulted from several decades of neoliberal restructuring. It takes aim at dominant interpretations of neoliberalism, arguing that it is wrongly viewed as reflecting neoliberal free market ideals, or as resulting from the influence of fundamentalist neoliberal intellectuals. The book concludes with a prognosis of the future prospects for neoliberalism. The End of Laissez-Faire? is a compelling and insightful analysis of neoliberalism, which will appeal to scholars and students of public policy, political science, sociology, political economy, anthropology, human geography, industrial relations and economics-related studies. Contents: Introduction 1. The Idealist View of Neoliberalism 2. Actually Existing Neoliberalism 3. Did Neoliberal Ideas Create the Neoliberal State and Economy? 4. Always Embedded Neoliberalism 5. The Class Embedded Nature of Neoliberalism 6. Institutionally Embedded Neoliberalism 7. Ideologically Embedded Neoliberalism 8. The Global Financial Crisis and the Future of Embedded Neoliberalism Bibliography Index

COVID-19 is the biggest public health and economic disaster of our time. It has posed the same threat across the globe, yet countries have responded very differently and some have clearly fared much better than others. Peter Baldwin uncovers the reasons why in this definitive account of the global politics of pandemic. He shows that how nations responded depended above all on the political tools available - how firmly could the authorities order citizens' lives and how willingly would they be obeyed? In Asia, nations quarantined the infected and their contacts. In the Americas and Europe they shut down their economies, hoping to squelch the virus's spread. Others, above all Sweden, responded with a light touch, putting their faith in social consensus over coercion. Whether citizens would follow their leaders' requests and how soon they would tire of their demands were crucial to hopes of taming the pandemic.

"Once-in-a-lifetime" financial crises have been a recurrent part of life in the last three decades. It is no longer possible to dismiss or ignore them as aberrations in an otherwise well-functioning system. Nor are they peculiar to recent times. Going back in history, asset price bubbles and bank-runs have been an endemic feature of the capitalist system over the last four centuries. The historical record offers a treasure trove of experience that may shed light on how and why financial crises happen and what can be done to avoid them - provided we are willing to learn from history. This book interweaves historical accounts with competing economic crisis theories and reveals why commentaries are often contradictory. First, it presents a series of episodes from tulip mania in the 17th century to the subprime mortgage meltdown. In order to tease out their commonalities and differences, it describes political, economic, and social backgrounds, identifies the primary actors and institutions, and explores the mechanisms behind the asset price bubbles, crashes, and bank-runs. Second, it starts with basic economic concepts and builds five competing theoretical approaches to understanding financial crises. Competing theoretical standpoints offer different interpretations of the same event, and draw dissimilar policy implications. This book analyses divergent interpretations of the historical record in relation to how markets function, the significance of market imperfections, economic decision-making process, the role of the government, and evolutionary dynamics of the capitalist system. Its diverse theoretical and historical content of this book complements economics, history and political science curriculum.

In this innovative and exhaustive study, Steven A. Ramirez posits that the subprime mortgage crisis, as well as the global macroeconomic catastrophe it spawned, is traceable to a gross failure of law. The rule of law must appropriately channel and constrain the exercise of economic and political power. Used effectively, it ensures that economic opportunity isn't limited to a small group of elites that enjoy growth at the expense of many, particularly those in vulnerable economic situations. In Lawless Capitalism, Ramirez calls for the rule of law to displace crony capitalism. Only through the rule of law, he argues, can capitalism be reconstructed.

The global economic crisis that closed the first decade of the twenty-first century has demonstrated that the contradictions of capitalism cannot be overcome. The challenge for socialist analysis is to reveal both the nature of these contradictions in the neo-liberal era of globalized finance, and their consequences in our time. Crises need to be understood as turning points that open up opportunities. How to facilitate this is the sharpest challenge posed to socialists by the most severe global economic crisis since the 1930s.

What implications does the crisis this time have in terms of capitalist economic and political restructuring? Does it portend the end of neo-liberalism? Can working classes reverse the pattern of defeat in recent decades, build new capacities, and impose their own template for types of economic and political renewal that can put back on the agenda the need to transcend capitalism itself? What additional costs will they be expected to bear as capitalists states prepare their 'exit strategies'? This edition of the "Socialist Register" addresses these questions and more with typically wide-ranging analysis from contributorsaround the globe.

Provisional Contributors: Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin, Alfredo Saad Filho, Hugo Radice, Anwar Shaikh, David McNally, Doug Henwood, Johanna Brenner, Michael Moran, Julie Froud, Adriana Nilsson, Karel Williams, Riccardo Bellofiore, R. Taggart Murphy, Ho-Fung Hung, Adam Hanieh, Ben Fine, Samantha Ashman, Susan Newman, Susanne Soederberg, Larry Lohmann, Dick Bryan, Michael Rafferty, Ursula Huws, and Greg Albo.

As interest in financial markets intensifies, stimulated by the financial crisis of the early twenty-first century, this book aims to enrich our understanding of the workings and history of financial centres in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the determinants of their success and failure.
The book brings together leading authorities in the field to examine the direction of international capital flows historically in light of the nature of the banking system, market organization, the regulatory framework, and contextual political and diplomatic factors. Contributions discuss competition, collaboration, withdrawal, and re-emergence of financial centres in Europe, America, and Asia over the past two centuries.
Written from a historical perspective but taking full account of recent studies in financial economics, the book, with contributions from leading international scholars, provides new research and approaches to a highly topical issue and sheds light on the recent financial crisis and its aftermath.

Following the Rio Agreement in 1967, the birth of the Special Drawing Right (SDR) was widely heralded as the first step towards a world international money. The SDR's intended purpose, though, was more modest: to help salvage the prevailing international monetary system which had evolved since Bretton Woods. This volume examines the relatively recent and important history of SDRs - what they are, where they came from, and why they are significant. It considers the changing roles and influences of the US and the IMF as post-Bretton Woods monetary arrangements established themselves. Despite their retreat from early acclaim, work continued, particularly at the Fund, on enhancing the potential of SDRs to contribute to international monetary stability and SDRs have recently re-emerged as a potential source of support and stability for the international monetary system underpinning the world economy. The SDR, and the debate surrounding it, is an excellent prism through which to examine other important themes in contemporary international political economy, including international liquidity provision and international monetary reform. Ultimately, the policies of the US, the Fund, and the changing nature of the relationship between them emerge as fundamental themes for an understanding of prospects for SDRs under post-Bretton Woods international monetary arrangements. Today, the promise and disappointment that has characterized the short history of SDRs is more important than ever as the world again examines these arrangements in the wake of the international financial crisis.

The increasing use of innovative technologies by global businesses has sparked debate about their application in crisis resolution. Resolution tools can be used by global businesses to manage various types of crisis situations, such as natural disasters, information security issues, economic downturns, health crisis situations, and sustainability issues in education, among others. Further study and consideration of the uses of technology in the areas of crisis and change management and intra-company communication practice in the context of global business must be done to ensure successful and sustainable businesses. Future Role of Sustainable Innovative Technologies in Crisis Management raises awareness of the multifaceted field of new technology in crisis management that has resulted in a paradigm shift in the way contemporary industries and global businesses communicate and conduct their daily business operations. This book defines the scope of innovative technologies as the application of new technologies to support the resolution of various types of crisis situations to achieve regulatory compliance and improved risk management in an effective and automated manner. Covering topics such as sustainable business and disaster scenarios, this reference work is ideal for managers, entrepreneurs, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.

The global financial crisis that started in 2007 sparked several academic debates about the role that financial sector regulators played in the crisis and prompted policy reforms in the financial supervision architectures of several countries. This book focuses on the question of what accountability, independence, transparency and, more generally, governance mechanisms applicable to financial regulators can better contribute to building responsive, responsible and effective regulatory and supervisory frameworks that tackle the weaknesses of the pre-crisis regimes. It re-visits the concepts of accountability and independence of financial regulators as well as the main economic theories underlying financial services policy-making, in light of the crisis experience. In addition, it critically examines the post-crisis institutional frameworks of financial regulation and supervision in the EU, the US and Canada with a view to assessing whether the financial regulators of the post-global financial crisis era are well suited to effectively address the challenges and threats that global financial markets pose to the stability, integrity and good functioning of financial systems as well as to the protection of consumers, investors and society at large.

World's Worst Historical Disasters examines some of the most significant natural and man-made disasters in world history, from those almost lost in the mists of time, such as the plague in Athens which killed 75 per cent of the population and the earthquake in Corinth that left 45,000 people dead to modern day catastrophes such as the New Delhi air collision and the Samastipur train disaster which both cost hundreds of lives. All kinds of horrendous disasters are covered including plagues, earthquakes, volcanoes, genocides, floods, train crashes and aeroplane crashes. Each fascinating account gives a full and detailed analysis of the events leading up to the disaster, the actual disaster itself and then the extent of the damage and the dreadful aftermath. Learn about the massacre at Milan, the great fire of London and the historic San Francisco earthquake. Each story is highly illustrated bringing every disaster to life, plus key facts outline the most important information and allows the reader the see facts at a glance. Whether the result of mankind or an inevitable and uncontrollable act of nature, World's Worst Historical Disasters will provide an educational and riveting read.

Academic finance research has shown that emerging markets still suffer from a myriad of risks such as credit, operational, market, legal and exchange rate risks. The onset of the subprime crisis 2007, the global financial crisis 2008-2009, and the Eurozone public debt crisis since the end of 2009 has brought to the light a number of emerging markets facing tumbling currencies, rising inflation, slowing growth, heavy dependence on foreign capital, and high levels of vulnerability to external shocks due to increased market integration. This context calls for not only a reconsideration of recent risk assessment models and risk management practices, but also the improvement and innovation of these models and practices. Factors such as liquidity, tail dependence, comovement, contagion, and timescale interactions have thus to be part of an integrated risk assessment and management framework. This book addresses three main dimensions of risk management in emerging markets: 1) the effectiveness of risk management practices; 2) current issues and challenges in risk assessment and modelling in emerging market countries; 3) the responses of emerging markets to the recent financial crises and the design of risk management models.

Many books on the 2008 financial crisis and the current recession focus on the financial sector. Unlike them, this book takes the real economy as the starting point and it situates the downturn within the societal context over the last several decades. Important elements of the story include global manufacturing overcapacity and declining profitability, failure of advanced industrial economies to make a quantum jump in discoveries and innovations across a broad range of technologies, ascent of neo-liberalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Asian financial crisis, the Japanese "lost decade", and the dot-com boom. This provides the backdrop of the birth of a market society, deregulation, easy credit, and financial excesses.The financial crisis reveals much that has gone astray in the business world over the last few decades - short term thinking, manipulation of figures and image management at the cost of the basics. The financial sector has become an arena for accounting shenanigans and corporate skullduggery. It is also a symptom of deeper social and cultural change. Crisis of a very serious nature functions as a cleansing exercise. Already we have seen debates which re-examine values and ideas, state policy and business practices. If the world could rise to the challenge, history will view the crisis as a blessing in disguise and thus render it in positive terms.

Jason Manolopoulos combines his experience of the global financial system, European politics and Greek society to demonstrate how one of the EU's smaller countries played a catalytic role in a crisis that threatens the future of the euro, and possibly even of the European Union itself. He explores the historical legacy and psychological biases that have shaped an on-going drama. While leaders of the European Union criticise 'the markets' for destabilizing the single currency, Manolopoulos interrogates the shared beliefs of the EU and the investment banking community - and how they colluded for a decade in the illusion that lending huge sums to peripheral eurozone countries was safe. Policy and investment errors bear marked similarities with earlier financial crises - in particular the Exchange Rate Mechanism system and the Argentine debt crisis. This inability to learn history's recent lessons begs fundamental questions of policy making, which this book discusses. Greek society also comes under scrutiny, as shocking details of a kleptocratic political class and a wasteful public sector are revealed. Manolopoulos traces these developments back to dictatorship and civil war, but argues that there is no excuse for their continuation in a modern democracy.

Clearing houses, or CCPs, were among the very few organisations to emerge from the global financial crisis with their standing enhanced. In the chaotic aftermath of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, they successfully completed trades worth trillions of dollars in a multitude of financial instruments across listed and over-the-counter markets, and so helped avert financial Armageddon.

That success transformed the business of clearing. Governments and regulators around the world gave CCPs and the clearing services they provide a front-line role in protecting the global economy from future excesses of finance. CCPs, which mitigate risk in financial markets, responded by greatly expanding their activities, notably in markets for over-the-counter derivatives, and often in fierce competition with one another.

In "The Risk Controllers," journalist and author Peter Norman describes how CCPs operate, how they handled the Lehman default, and the challenges they now face. Because central counterparty clearing is a complex business with a long history that continues to influence decisions and structures even in today's fast changing world, "The Risk Controllers" explores the development of CCPs and clearing from the earliest times to the present.

It draws on the experiences of the people who helped to shape the business of clearing today. It sets the development of CCPs and clearing in the broader context of changes in society, politics and regulation. The book examines turning points, such as the 1987 stock market crash, that set clearing on a new path and the impact of long running trends, including the exponential growth of computer power and the ebb and flow of globalisation.

Written in non-technical language, "The Risk Controllers" provides a unique and accessible guide to CCPs and clearing. It is essential reading for clearing professionals, legislators and regulators whose job it is to take this vitally important business into the future.

""The recent crisis has, thankfully, renewed interest in the importance of central counterparties: how they can help preserve stability or, as Hong Kong showed in 1987, undermine stability if they are not super sound. Peter Norman's book places the role of clearing houses in a historical context, and explains why the financial system's plumbing matters so much. It should be read by anyone interested in building safer capital markets.""

Paul Tucker, Deputy Governor Financial Stability, Bank of England

The Cold War was fought between "state socialism" and "the free market." That fluctuating relationship between public power and private money continues today, unfolding in new and unforeseen ways during the economic crisis. Nine case studies -- from Southern Africa, South Asia, Brazil, and Atlantic Africa - examine economic life from the perspective of ordinary people in places that are normally marginal to global discourse, covering a range of class positions from the bottom to the top of society. The authors of these case studies examine people's concrete economic activities and aspirations. By looking at how people insert themselves into the actual, unequal economy, they seek to reflect human unity and diversity more fully than the narrow vision of conventional economics.

The global financial crisis of 2007-8 did not offer the political and economic opportunities to the left that many thought it would. As financial institutions collapsed, traditional left-wing issues were apparently back on the agenda. However, instead of being a trigger for a resurgence of the left, in many European countries left-wing parties have suffered savage electoral defeat. At the same time, the crisis has led to austerity programmes being implemented across Europe. This book brings together essays that consider ten EU member states, including all bail-out recipients and some of the main 'donor' states, in an examination of this crucial period for the left in Europe from a number of perspectives. Comparisons are presented between the various EU member states, as well as different party families of the left, from social democracy through green left to radical left. -- .

Although there have been numerous studies of the causes and consequences of the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2010 in the US and abroad, many of these were undertaken only for a small number of countries and before the financial and economic effects were fully realized and before various governmental policy responses were decided upon and actually implemented. This book aims to fill these voids by providing a more thorough assessment now that the worst events and the regulatory reforms are sufficiently behind us and much more information about these developments is available. It reviews and analyzes the causes and consequences of and the regulatory responses to the Great Financial Crisis, particularly from a public policy viewpoint. In the process, it explores such intriguing questions as: What caused the crisis? How did the crisis differ across countries? What is the outlook for another crisis, and when? This is a must read for those who are trying to find answers to these questions.

An engaging and accessible examination of what ails insurance markets—and what to do about it—by three leading economists.

Why is dental insurance so crummy? Why is pet insurance so expensive? Why does your auto insurer ask for your credit score? The answer to these questions lies in understanding how insurance works. Unlike the market for other goods and services—for instance, a grocer who doesn’t care who buys the store’s broccoli or carrots—insurance providers are more careful in choosing their customers, because some are more expensive than others.

Unraveling the mysteries of insurance markets, Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, and Ray Fisman explore such issues as why insurers want to know so much about us and whether we should let them obtain this information; why insurance entrepreneurs often fail (and some tricks that may help them succeed); and whether we’d be better off with government-mandated health insurance instead of letting businesses, customers, and markets decide who gets coverage and at what price. With insurance at the center of divisive debates about privacy, equity, and the appropriate role of government, this book offers clear explanations for some of the critical business and policy issues you’ve often wondered about, as well as for others you haven’t yet considered.