Conventional wisdom says that Europe's crisis is a financial crisis. But is this really the case? In Industrial Poverty, economist Sven R. Larson, challenges this view and suggests instead that Europe is in a state of permanent economic decline. The crisis, says Larson, is in fact a welfare-state crisis. Over decades, government has grown too big for the private sector to pay for; when the recession hit in 2008 most European economies could no longer bear the burden of the welfare state. Raging deficits, accelerating unemployment and harsh austerity policies hurled the continent into more than a regular recession. Europe is entering a new economic state: industrial poverty. Using Sweden in the 1990s as an example, Larson shows how a welfare-state crisis combined with the wrong kind of austerity policies replaces prosperity with industrial poverty. In a desperate effort to balance the budget and save the welfare state in the midst of the crisis, the Swedish government subjected the country to some of the toughest austerity measures on record. The outcome was a permanent reduction in the standard of living for Swedish families as well as the standard of government services. Today, Europe is going through the same transition into industrial poverty. Tomorrow, it could be the United States, unless Congress and the President take decisive action against the runaway budget deficit.

Following the outbreak of the international financial crisis, Southern Europe became an epicentre of economic instability and international concern. The prospect of a sovereign debt default in the eurozone s flaky fringe sent shock waves through the European and global economies. Examining the crucial initial phase, when the financial crisis was just beginning to spill over into the real economy, the volume surveys the impact of the September 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse across the EU s southern periphery. The six South European eurozone members Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta are viewed in comparative perspective with EU candidate state and non-eurozone member, Turkey. In an era before the spectacular EU/IMF bailouts, the picture that emerges is one of national differentiation, illuminating these countries different starting points and varying policy responses in the face of the gathering financial storm.

This book was published in 2009 as a special issue of South European Society and Politics."

Despite the depth of the Greek crisis, the exorbitant burdens placed upon the working people and the massive popular resistance movement to capitalist policies, there is a definite lack of consistently Marxist analyses of the Greek problem. International debates regarding the Greek crisis have been dominated by orthodox (Neoclassical and neo-Keynesian) approaches. The heterodox side of these debates has been occupied by Radical Political Economy approaches (usually radical Post-Keynesian or Marxo-Keynesian perspectives). Moreover, they are dominated by the 'financialization' thesis which is quite alien to Marxism, neglects the sphere of production and professes that the global crisis is simply a financial crisis that has nothing to do with 'real' accumulation and the profit rate. This book argues that by emphasizing the sphere of production and profitability, classical Marxist analysis better explains the Greek crisis than its orthodox and heterodox competitors. The contributors present critiques of the prevalent approaches and offer studies of the Greek crisis that use the methodology and the analytical and empirical tools of classical Marxist Political Economy.In particular, it is shown that the Greek crisis was caused by falling profitability and the ensuing over accumulation crisis. The 'broad unequal exchange' existing between the euro-center and the euro-periphery contributed to Greek capital's falling profitability. This book enriches the debate about the Greek economic crisis by demonstrating the insights that can be drawn by considering the Marxist alternative to the dominant mainstream and heterodox approaches.

This book examines the recent evolution of the Mediterranean Welfare regime, and how the economic crisis may be contributing to redefine its basic traits. Moving from the macro comparative analysis of long-term socio-demographic trends to the study of specific welfare programs, the chapters included in this book employ a variety of methods and approaches to review the specificities of the Mediterranean Welfare model. All chapters aim to analyze the role that the recent transformations experienced by Southern European societies (ageing, increasing women labour market participation, decreasing expectations for care within the family, immigration) have had over this model. The basic characteristics of this regime type are supposed to be strongly grounded in the values shared by these societies (familistic tendencies, clientelism, lack of generalized trust), but the modernization which these countries experienced in recent years have contributed, with a different speed and to a different degree, to a significant transformation in their axiological foundations. The impact of the current fiscal and economic crisis on the Mediterranean Welfare regimes may be contributing to the growing de-legitimatisation of political systems of these countries, something particularly important in a region that established democratic regimes only (relatively) recently. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Societies.

This book seeks to analyze how small and medium businesses react to the economic and financial crisis. Its focus is on the activities and strategies of SMEs in the areas of innovation, R&D investment, labor markets and finance. The book takes an international perspective and includes both comparative and national analyses and policies, with authors representing acdemia and international institutions such as the ECB, OECD, Kauffman Foundation, Federal Reserve, and US Small Business Administration.

This book examines China s response to the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, and the resulting new status acquired by China within the international economy. It considers the things China did to weather the crisis, discussing the stimulus package put in place by China and how China s banks coped, but above all examines the measures which countries outside China look to China to put in place in order to better encourage and secure world-wide economic recovery, measures such as currency revaluation, tax reform and greater stimulation of domestic demand. The book contrasts China s response to the crisis, and China s increasingly central role in the world economy, with the responses of the European Union. The book also assesses China s increasingly important regional role, in particular its dialogue with the new Japanese government, and China s positioning towards Southeast Asia, and also discusses the growth of Chinese foreign direct investment.

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This book is a review on the economic theories of systemic risks in the financial market and the topics in constructing the macroprudential framework for banking regulation in the future. It explains the reasons why the traditional microprudential regulatory framework missed its target in stabilizing the market and preventing the crisis, and discusses the principles and instruments for designing macroprudential rules.

The consequences of the global economic crisis which started in the United States in 2007-08 are still being felt in most of the advanced economies, and the mainstream tools of recovery are not having the required results. It seems that many of the after-effects of the crisis, including the instability of the financial markets, increasing public debts and limited economic growth, require new solutions from both economic policy and theory. Lower aggregate demand during the crisis increased the pressure on firms to be more competitive and at the same time, the crisis in the banking system has had a negative impact on the willingness of financial institutions to give credit to companies for investment. Therefore, the key issue for current economic policy is to find a balance between the stabilisation of public finance and maintaining the momentum of long-term growth. This book offers an evolutionary-developmental analysis, combining elements of neo-Schumpeterian economics, institutional economics and post-Keynesian economics, to show that selection processes within an economy, and the institutional rules shaping those processes, are substantially more important than usually recognised by evolutionary economic theory. Two major challenges for economic theory and policy, in particular, have emerged during the crisis. The first is the rise of unemployment coupled with growing public deficits. The second is the financial instability which threatens the permanence of economic development. This book examines the performance of the advanced economies since the crisis and explores why some of them have been more successful in tackling these challenges than others. It is argued that the reasons for the varied performances of these economies lie in the economic policies which were introduced before and in the aftermath of the crisis and the differences in the regulation of their labour markets. This volume will be of interest to students and academics in the areas of macroeconomics, public economics and public management.

First published in 1919, Taxation in the New State explores the practical application of tax policy to the financial situation of post-World War I Britain. Hobson assesses policy according to the tax payer's ability to bear the burden and draws a distinction between 'cost' and 'surplus'. He proposes a number of reforms and considers the pitfalls of attempting the find required revenue using ordinary taxation in a post-war financial crisis.

This volume

• examines the vulnerability of sound banks during financial crises
• helps understand the nature of financial crises and other banking issues
• traces the history of banking reform in the United States from 1933 until 1992
• discusses deregulation in the US banking system

The world economy fell into a global financial crisis in 2008/9 and is still jittered by its aftershocks. Like other financial crises happened in the world economy, it came as a surprise. In historical perspective, financial crises should be understood as a natural fact of life in the world economy and a more pertinent question that should be posed would be why people so easily forget and do not learn from the historical experience. This book deals with the question in two ways. First, it investigates the frame of mind that distances people from the reality of life. At the heart of it, it argues that there are wrong perceptions on the working of the world economy, in particular, the international financial market. It summarizes them as 'the five conventional wisdoms' in the international financial market and, by critically examining them, it draws on 'the five financial theorems', which would provide intellectual pillars for a more realistic understanding of the global financial market. Second, the book examines in detail the case of an emerging market economy that fell into a financial crisis twice in the recent decade. South Korea provides us with an interesting case of emerging market financial crises that came as 'surprises': it faced a financial crisis in 1997/98 after it had been acclaimed as one of 'East Asian miracle economies' and it was again befallen to a crisis during the global financial crisis in 2008/2009 after it was widely regarded as a country that had recovered from the crisis with one of the most successful implementations of the IMF-sponsored reforms. The book attempts to provide the readers with a realistic understanding of emerging market financial crises by interpreting the recent global financial crisis and the Korean crises with some general concepts manifested in 'the five financial theorems'. It also tries to draw more general implications for policy management of emerging market economies.

This global handbook provides an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of shadow banking, or market-based finance as it has been recently coined. Engaging in financial intermediary services outside of normal regulatory parameters, the shadow banking sector was arguably a critical factor in causing the 2007-2009 financial crisis. This volume focuses specifically on shadow banking activities, risk, policy and regulatory issues. It evaluates the nexus between policy design and regulatory output around the world, paying attention to the concept of risk in all its dimensions-the legal, financial, market, economic and monetary perspectives. Particular attention is given to spillover risk, contagion risk and systemic risk and their positioning and relevance in shadow banking activities. Newly introduced and incoming policies are evaluated in detail, as well as how risk is managed, observed and assessed, and how new regulation can potentially create new sources of risk. Volume I concludes with analysis of what will and still needs to happen in the event of another crisis. Proposing innovative suggestions for improvement, including a novel Pigovian tax to tame financial and systemic risks, this handbook is a must-read for professionals and policy-makers within the banking sector, as well as those researching economics and finance.

The financial crash of 2007-2008 and the subsequent global economic crisis have raised questions about the viability of capitalism and the desirability of alternative types of economic system. In this context, Keynesian and Marxist ideas in particular have become more popular. These two approaches, along with some other heterodox perspectives, agree on the need for institutional analysis and for better institutions and governance in order to promote economic development. This volume poses fundamental institutional, evolutionary and ontological questions relating to the emergence of a new mode of governance after the financial crisis. The book argues that, contrary to the recent austerity policies implemented in the EU in particular, a new level of government involvement is required in order to keep aggregate demand stable, make full employment possible, and create a transparent financial sector, serving the real economy and encouraging productive investments. This book will be of interest to students, researchers and policy makers working in the areas of finance, institutional economics, development economics and international political economy.

When financial crises occur, it has long been accepted that national economies need a lender of last resort to stabilize markets. In today's global financial system, crises are rarely confined to one country. Indeed, they often go global. Yet, there is no formal international lender of last resort (ILLR) to perform this function for the world economy. Conventional wisdom says that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has emerged as the de facto ILLR. Yet, that premise is incomplete. Brother, Can You Spare a Billion? explores how the United States 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 U.S. policymakers ever put national financial resources at risk to "bailout" foreign governments and citizens to whom they are not beholden when the IMF was created for this purpose? Daniel McDowell argues the United States has been compelled to provide such rescues unilaterally when it believes a multilateral response via the IMF is either too slow or too small to protect vital U.S. economic and financial interests. Through a combination of historical case studies and statistical analysis, McDowell uncovers the defensive motives behind U.S. decisions to provide global liquidity beginning in the 1960s, moving through international debt crises of the 1980s and emerging market currency crises of the 1990s, and extending up to the 2008 global financial crisis. Together, these analyses paint a more complete picture of how international financial crises have been managed and highlight the unique role that the U.S. has played in stabilizing the world economy in troubled times.

Central banks are major players in today's economic and financial policy-making. While respected for their technical acumen and their pivotal role in defusing the global financial crisis, they are at the same time mistrusted by others and considered to be too powerful. In order to contribute to a better understanding of the why, what and how of central banking, this book traces the progress of central banks from modest beginnings, including financing wars, to the powerful institutions they have become. It describes the evolution of the Bank of England to a fully-fledged central bank, the very different route taken by the Federal Reserve and, much later, by the European Central Bank. The gold standard, floating exchange rates, and the battle against inflation are covered in depth, alongside a review of modern monetary policy and central banks' role in maintaining financial stability. Throughout the book, the ups and downs of central banks' relationship vis-a-vis their governments are a recurring theme, even surmising that reigning in the independence of central banks risks inflicting serious damage to economic and financial stability. Uncovering the challenges that the money masters may face in an uncertain future, this book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and practitioners in central banking, finance, and economics at large.

The recent financial and economic crisis has spurred a lot of interest among scholars and public audience. Strangely enough, the impact of the crisis on innovation has been largely underestimated. This books can be regarded as a complementary reading for those interested in the effect of the crisis with a particular focus on Europe.

The book studies the trends that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, as well as the unfolding of the crisis, in order to provide policy recommendations to improve financial stability. The book starts with changes in monetary policy and income distribution from the 1970s. These changes profoundly modified the foundations of economic growth in the US by destroying the commitment banking model and by decreasing the earning power of households whose consumption has been at the core of the growth process.

The main themes of the book are the changes in the financial structure and income distribution, the collapse of the Ponzi process in 2007, and actual and prospective policy responses. The objective is to show that Minskya (TM)s approach can be used to understand the making and unfolding of the crisis and to draw some policy implications to improve financial stability.

The current global financial crisis has raised awareness of the impact the world of finance has on the economy and the future of democracy. Following the crisis, this book aims at a deep understanding of the human psycho-social dynamics beneath the surface of the financial industry, its markets and institutions. It seeks to understand why the seemingly rational world of economic behavior, with its calculated models and predictions, at times goes horribly wrong. This book uses the discipline of socio-analysis to explore the meaning of money, markets and the broad financial world that so strongly affects our daily lives. Socio-analysis contributes to an awareness and understanding of underlying unconscious desires, fantasies and illusions that bring about the irrational inflation of faith and trust in the world of money, finance and capital(ism). The insight that the financial crisis 'was essentially psychological in origin' (Robert Shiller) and that the world of finance is broadly shaped if not determined by irrational often unconscious factors is not yet broadly shared. This book appears to be one of the first, if not the first contribution that explicitly focuses on what is beneath the surface of money, finance and capital. It invites the reader to explore the financial world in depth. The aim of this book is to provide businesses, organizational consultants, students, researchers and interested persons more broadly with a detailed exploration of the psycho-social dynamics of the financial industry as it exists currently within the capitalist system. The contributors to this book come from Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, The Netherlands, UK, and USA.

The global health crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak, has challenged all sectors of society, including health, economics, finance, and social inequality. The threats and complexities from the COVID-19 pandemic shock are the core subject of this latest volume in the Contributions to Economic Analysis series. The Economics of COVID-19 contains selected contributions analysing the effects of this pandemic, covering macroeconomics, computable general equilibrium models, financial markets, the reduction in seismic noise due to the slowdown in traffic and economic activities caused by the spread of the virus, the rapid surge in the digital transformation of production and consumption. Also included are health studies proposing to improve the traditional epidemic models, the effects of the pandemic on mental health, Minority Ethnic Groups in the UK, as well as the Lombardy region in Italy. The aim of this collection is to spur much needed research into the effects of COVID on the global economy, the health, and financial sectors, as well as its effects on development and growth and economic inequality.

From bestselling author Connie Bruck,The Predators’ Ball dramatically captures American business history in the making, uncovering the philosophy of greed that dominated Wall Street in the 1980s.

During the 1980s, Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert was the Billionaire Junk Bond King. He invented such things as “the highly confident letter” (“I’m highly confident that I can raise the money you need to buy company X”) and the “blind pool” (“Here’s a billion dollars: let us help you buy a company”), and he financed the biggest corporate raiders—men like Carl Icahn and Ronald Perelman. And then, on September 7, 1988, things changed...

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert with insider trading and stock fraud. Waiting in the wings was the US District Attorney, who wanted to file criminal and racketeering charges.

What motivated Milken in his drive for power and money? Did Drexel Burnham Lambert condone the breaking of laws?

Long before the financial meltdown and the red alert on climate change, some far-sighted innovators diagnosed the fatal flaws in an economic system driven by greed and fear. Across the global North and South, diverse people - financial wizards, economists, business people and social activists - have been challenging the "free market" orthodoxy. They seek to recover the virtues of bazaars from the tyranny of a market model that emerged about two centuries ago. This widely praised book is a chronicle of their achievements. From Wall Street icon George Soros and VISA card designer Dee Hock we get an insider critique of the malaise. Creators of community currencies and others, like the father of microfinance, Bangladesh's Muhammad Yunus, explore how money can work differently. The doctrine of self-interest is re-examined by looking more closely at Adam Smith through the eyes of Amartya Sen. Mahatma Gandhi's concept of 'Trusteeship' gathers strength as the socially responsible investing phenomenon challenges the power of capital. Pioneers of the open source and free software movement thrive on cooperation to drive innovation. The Dalai Lama and Ela Bhatt demonstrate that it is possible to compete compassionately and to nurture a more mindful market culture. This sweeping narrative takes you from the ancient Greek agora, Indian choupal, and Native American gift culture, on to present-day Wall Street to illuminate ideas, subversive and prudent, about how the market can serve society rather than being its master. In a world exhausted by dogma, Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom is an open quest for possible futures. This fully updated and revised UK version of the 2009 Vodafone Crossword Book Award winner for non-fiction is a rare and epic narrative about those who have been quietly forging solutions and demonstrating that a more compassionate market culture is both possible and desirable.

Since the nineteenth century, Greek financial and economic crises have been an enduring problem, most recently engulfing the European Union and EU member states. The latest crisis, beginning in 2010, has been - and continues to be - a headline news story across the continent. With a radically different approach and methodology, this anthropological study brings new insights to our understanding of the Greek crises by combining historical material from before and after the nineteenth century War of Independence with extensive longitudinal ethnographic research. The ethnography covers two distinct periods - the 1980s and the current crisis years - and compares Mystras and Kefala, two villages in southern Greece, each of which has responded quite differently to economic circumstances. Analysis of this divergence highlights the book's central point that an ideology of aspiration to work in the public sector, pervasive in Greek society since the nineteenth century, has been a major contributor to Greece's problematic economic development. Shedding new light on previously under-researched anthropological and sociological aspects of the Greek economic crisis, this book will be essential reading for economists, anthropologists and historians.

The global financial crisis, which began in 2007, was probably the biggest shock to hit the UK economy in living memory. Since the beginning of this crisis, much has happened that might previously have been thought impossible: the virtual nationalization of two of the UK s largest banks, a government deficit in double digits, a negative watch on the UK s AAA credit rating, a Bank of England base rate 150 basis points below its previous all-time low, and a 200,000m. programme of quantitative easing. These momentous events have demanded a fundamental reworking of the traditional analysis of the UK economy.

The publication of UK Economy: The Crisis in Perspective meets this need for a radical new analysis of the UK economic system. The book is an edited collection of papers presented to a European Commission seminar held in June 2010 to discuss prospects for the UK economy, the book includes chapters by some of the most prominent and respected commentators on the UK economy, including Christopher Pissarides, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for economics sciences, Martin Weale, recently appointed to the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee and Dave Ramsden, Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury.

The chapters cover:

• fiscal policy and its impact on growth and wealth distribution
• monetary policy and the Bank of England's unprecedented stimulus programme
• a detailed decomposition of the sources of UK growth between 1973 and 2009
• the structural excess of consumption that fuelled the UK's long boom
• the UK's labour market performance.

The highly distinguished group of authors, coverage and analysis of issues central to recent UK economic history, along with the European Commission's assessment of UK economic prospects make this essential reading for economists, business and financial people, academics and students, as well for all those interested in the historical background of, and prospects for, the UK economy.

Information in the chapters will be supplemented by a number of charts and tables offering information in graphic form.

The contributors are: Gabriele Giudice, Head of the Unit responsible for the UK, Estonia and Latvia in the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) at the European Commission; Robert Kuenzel, an Economist in DG ECFIN; Thomas Springbett, UK country desk officer in DG ECFIN, responsible for forecasting and surveillance; Christopher Pissarides, professor of economics at the London School of Economics and holder of the Norman Sosnow Chair in Economics; Ray Barrell, professor at Brunel University; Philip Davis, senior fellow at the National Institute for Economic and Social Research; Martin Weale, an independent member of the Bank of England s Monetary Policy Committee; Xavier Ramos, associate professor at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; Dave Ramsden, Managing Director of Macroeconomic and Fiscal Policy at HM Treasury and joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service.

Since the mid-20th century, organizational theorists have increasingly distanced themselves from the study of core societal power centers and important policy issues of the day. This has been driven by a shift away from the study of organizations, politics, and society and towards a more narrow focus on instrumental exchange and performance. As a result, our field has become increasingly impotent as a critical voice and contributor to policy. For a contemporary example, witness our inability as a field to make sense of the recent U.S. mortgage meltdown and concomitant global financial crisis. It is not that economic and organizational sociologists have nothing to say. The problem is that while we have a great deal of knowledge about finance, the economy, entrepreneurship and corporations, we fail to address how the knowledge in our field can be used to contribute to important policy issues of the day. This double-volume brings together some of the very top scholars in the world in economic and organizational sociology to address the recent global financial crisis debates and struggles around how to organize economies and societies around the world.

Debt, private and public, and in particular excessive debt, has been debated to be one of the root causes of economic crises. At the same time, economic crises are believed to lead to an increase of debt. This book, through a range of contributors, explores certain constituents of an economy and attempts to identify their contribution to debt (public and private), especially in times of crisis; namely, bonds, tariffs, social security and non-performing loans (NPLs). Furthermore, it captures the (implicit) impact of the demography on debt through tariffs and social security and investigates the effect of quantitative easing/purchase programs and as well as crises on debt. In addition, the (cost of the) reserve that a state may want to provision for, in order to secure its economy from defaulting within a certain time horizon, is also addressed and calculated. This calculation offers an alternative valuation, or pricing, of (excess) debt (default protection). This book aims to offer a comparative study of countries - especially those with a history of excessive debt - and intends to realize whether an economic crisis can genuinely deteriorate debt, or whether the debt unsustainability is preexisting to the crisis. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in economic policy and growth.