Praise for Endgame "This is an extremely powerful, sobering, well-written and highly accessible book. It will demonstrate to you why there are no painless solutions to the mounting debt problems around the world something that too many people are yet to realize. It will take you on a well-documented journey through the debt supercycle, making stops around the world and at critical junctures. And it is a must-read for anyone wishing to understand the global debt dynamics and ways to protect against its bad consequences." Mohamed A. El-Erian, CEO, PIMCO, and author of When Markets Collide "No one has thought more creatively about the economy. Mauldin's weekly newsletter is a must-read, and his book is even more important if you want to understand a rapidly changing world." Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the House of Representatives "Successful investors explore all possibilities. You should read this book so you can succeed in case the Endgame is our future." Jim Rogers, author of A Gift to My Children "I read everything John Mauldin writes. He travels the world and shares his financial stories like a good friend sharing a drink. Mauldin is that rarity a skeptical optimist who calls 'em straight and rewards his clients and fans." Rich Karlgaard, Publisher and Columnist, Forbes magazine "There's clearly something important going on in the world economy. Something big. Something powerful and dangerous. But something as yet undefined and uncertain. We are all feeling our way around in the dark, trying to figure out what it is. John Mauldin must have night vision glasses. He does an excellent job of seeing the obstacles. You should read this book before you knock over a lamp and stumble over the furniture." William Bonner, President and CEO, Agora Inc., and author of Dice Have No Memory and Empire of Debt "Endgame is not only a highly readable and informative account of the causes of the recent global economic and financial meltdown, but it also provides investors with a concrete investment strategy from which they can benefit while this final act in financial history is being played out." Marc Faber, Managing Director, Marc Faber, Ltd., and Editor, Gloom, Boom & Doom Report

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The financial crisis triggered a global debate on the taxation of the financial sector. A number of international policy initiatives, most notably by the G-20, have called for major changes to the tax treatment of financial institutions and transactions, as well as to working practice within the financial sector. This book examines how tax policies contributed to the financial crisis and whether taxation can play a role in the reform efforts to establish a sounder and safer financial system. It looks at the pros and cons of various tax initiatives including limiting the tax advantages to debt financing; special taxes on the financial sector; and financial transactions taxes. It examines policy concerns such as: the manner in which the financial sector should "pay" for its bailout and the role of accumulated tax losses on financial institutions' behaviour; the role that taxes may play in correcting the systemic externalities associated with "too big to fail"; the types of tax that are most appropriate for financial institutions and markets ("excess profits" versus "financial transactions taxes"); the interaction between taxes and the regulation of the financial sector; and the role of taxation in countercyclical and macroeconomic policies.

The passage of the National Currency Act of 1863 gave the United States its first uniform paper money, its first nationally chartered and supervised commercial banks, and its first modern regulatory agency: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The law marked a milestone in the development of the U.S. financial system and the modern administrative state. Yet its importance has been largely overlooked. Banking Modern America aims to address that gap. With its unique multidisciplinary approach that brings together scholars from disciplines including history, economics, the law, and finance, this book lends a new dimension to studying the origins and development of a system that touched key aspects of modern America. Chapters examine key episodes in the history of Federal banking, looking at the Civil War origins of the national banking system and the practical challenges of setting up a new system of money and banking. The essays in this volume explore the tensions that arose between bankers and Federal regulators, between governmental jurisdictions, and even between regulators themselves. This book will be essential reading for academics of banking and finance, regulation, numismatics and history, as well as professional economists, historians and policy makers interested in the history of the US financial system.

Eran Eyal had it all: a trendy New York apartment, a jet-set lifestyle and investors lining up to get in on his million-dollar cryptocurrency start-up, Shopin. He had come a long way from an ordinary middle-class childhood in Durban and the burgeoning tech start-up world of Cape Town.

But the New York authorities pounced in 2018, charged him with fraud and packed him off to Rikers Island. There began the gobsmacking unravelling of a scam that spanned investors across the globe and revealed that Eyal had built a house of cards involving fictitious products, clients and advisors for Shopin and his previous company, Springleap. As more than $40 million went up in smoke, the South African entrepreneur was exposed as an audacious fraudster determined to succeed at any cost – even if it meant spinning a web of  lies to do so.

“An age-old narrative about ego and flying too close to the sun as well as a modern version of greed in the tech world.” Michael Jordaan

“Eyal proves definitively that a thousand white lies can get you convicted of fraud. This book meticulously walks the reader though the start-up lies that ended in tears.” Nic Haralambous

Using extensive documentary evidence and interviews with former Lehman employees, Oonagh McDonald reveals the decisions that led to Lehman's collapse, investigates why the government refused a bail-out and whether the implications of this refusal were fully understood. In clear and accessible language she demonstrates both the short and long term effects of Lehman's collapse. -- .

The bailouts during the recent financial crisis enraged the public. They felt unfair--and counterproductive: people who take risks must be allowed to fail. If we reward firms that make irresponsible investments, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, aren't we encouraging them to continue to act irresponsibly, setting the stage for future crises? And beyond the ethics of it was the question of whether the government even had the authority to bail out failing firms like Bear Stearns and AIG. The answer, according to Eric A. Posner, is no. The federal government freely and frequently violated the law with the bailouts--but it did so in the public interest. An understandable lack of sympathy toward Wall Street has obscured the fact that bailouts have happened throughout economic history and are unavoidable in any modern, market-based economy. And they're actually good. Contrary to popular belief, the financial system cannot operate properly unless the government stands ready to bail out banks and other firms. During the recent crisis, Posner agues, the law didn't give federal agencies sufficient power to rescue the financial system. The legal constraints were damaging, but harm was limited because the agencies--with a few exceptions--violated or improvised elaborate evasions of the law. Yet the agencies also abused their power. If illegal actions were what it took to advance the public interest, Posner argues, we ought to change the law, but we need to do so in a way that also prevents agencies from misusing their authority. In the aftermath of the crisis, confusion about what agencies did do, should have done, and were allowed to do, has prevented a clear and realistic assessment and may hamper our response to future crises. Taking up the common objections raised by both right and left, Posner argues that future bailouts will occur. Acknowledging that inevitability, we can and must look ahead and carefully assess our policy options before we need them.

Emerging relatively unscathed from the banking crisis of 2008, China has been viewed as a model of both rampant success and fiscal stability. But beneath the surface lies a network of fissures that look likely to erupt into the next big financial crash. A bloated real-estate sector, roller-coaster stock market, and rapidly growing shadow-banking sector have all coalesced to create a perfect storm: one that is in danger of taking the rest of the world's economy with it. Walden Bello traces our recent history of financial crises - from the bursting of Japan's 'bubble economy' in 1990 to Wall Street in 2008 - taking in their political and human ramifications such as rising inequality and environmental degradation. He not only predicts that China might be the site of the next crash, but that under neoliberalism this will simply keep happening. The only way that we can stop this cycle, Bello argues, is through a fundamental change in the ways that we organise: a shift to cooperative enterprise, respectful of the environment, and which fractures the twin legacies of imperialism and capitalism. Insightful, erudite and passionate, Paper Dragons is a must-read for anyone wishing to prevent the next financial meltdown.

The rules of making money have changed-foreverWith the collapse of investment banks, trillion-dollar-plus government bailouts, and the Dow plunging like a rock, it's never been more important to understand-and actually profit from-the "new rules." Fact is, "Fiscal Hangover," will give you an investing blueprint that will allow you to profit from the changing global economy.

For the first time in 200 years, American consumers are stepping down from their position as the driving force behind the world's economy. In "Fiscal Hangover," Keith Fitz-Gerald analyzes the declining power of the American consumer and introduces you to the resulting investment opportunities. Without question, the American consumer and the United States government have provided the rest of the world with liquidity in the form of cheap capital and abundant debt. But in light of recent economic events, the rules of the game have changed and that means you must change with them-if you intend on securing your financial future.

Unlike most of today's finance books that simply examine the end of the American Empire, "Fiscal Hangover" shows you how to prepare for the fall, effectively allocate your investments, and thrive in the new global economy. This book offers specific analysis and concrete actionable steps for individual investors interested in grabbing their fair share of what will be the greatest wealth creation in the history of mankind.Examines our current financial situation and offers practical investment advice to overcome the challenges you'll faceAnalyzes the declining power of the American consumer and introduces you to the resulting investment opportunitiesDetails new investing benchmarks and discusses why the old ones no longer workExplores big picture economic issues that will affect your individual investment endeavors

The coming years may hold the greatest investment opportunities of our times, but in order to take advantage of this you'll need the insights that can only be found in "Fiscal Hangover."

The deterioration of employment conditions for an increasing number of employees in late capitalism has prompted researchers to find ways to conceptualise, as well as measure, these observed new tendencies. This book examines precarious employment in Europe through the economic crisis, drawing on two main sources: theories of how the financial and debt crisis coupled with labour market reforms to exacerbate precarity in the workforce; and data from the European Labour Force Survey from 2005-12, capturing various aspects of precarious employment. It also includes a detailed discussion of policy developments in a series of EU countries, with the aim of demonstrating how precarity has been directly linked with certain labour market reforms implemented both before and after the crisis. The authors conclude that the crisis and the labour market reforms represent significant pillars of the strategy used by states and employers to respond to the crisis, as well as promote their competitiveness agenda. The reduction of labour costs and the promotion of higher flexibility are the ultimate goals of that strategy, but the side-effects include an inability to provide high quality jobs to a growing number of people, especially young people. The authors also capture the extent of precarious employment, providing comparable evidence across EU countries.

The United States suffers from a shortage of well-placed homes. This was true even at the peak of the housing boom in 2005. Using a broad array of evidence on housing inflation, income, migration, homeownership trends, and international comparisons, Shut Out demonstrates that high home prices have been largely caused by the constrained housing supply in a handful of magnet cities leading the new economy. The same phenomenon is occurring in leading countries across the globe. Gentrifying cities have become exclusionary bastions in the new postindustrial economy. The US housing bubble that peaked in 2005 is more accurately described as a refugee crisis than a credit bubble. Surging demand for limited urban housing triggered a spike of migration away from the magnet cities among households with moderate and lower incomes who could no longer afford to remain, causing a brief contagion of high prices in the cities where the migrants moved. In this book, author Kevin Erdmann observes that the housing bubble has been broadly and incorrectly attributed to various "excesses." Policymakers and economists concluded that our key challenge was that we had built too many homes. This misdiagnosis of the problem, according to Erdmann, led to misguided public polices, which were the primary cause of the subsequent financial crisis. A sort of moral panic about supposed excesses in home lending and construction led to destabilizing monetary and regulatory decisions. As the economy slumped, a sense of fatalism prevented the government from responding appropriately to the worsening situation. Shut Out provides a much-needed correction to the causes and consequences of financial crises and secular stagnation.

Originally written for a conference of the Federal Reserve, Gary Gorton's "The Panic of 2007" garnered enormous attention and is considered by many to be the most convincing take on the recent economic meltdown. Now, in Slapped by the Invisible Hand, Gorton builds upon this seminal work, explaining how the securitized-banking system, the nexus of financial markets and instruments unknown to most people, stands at the heart of the financial crisis.
Gorton shows that the Panic of 2007 was not so different from the Panics of 1907 or of 1893, except that, in 2007, most people had never heard of the markets that were involved, didn't know how they worked, or what their purposes were. Terms like subprime mortgage, asset-backed commercial paper conduit, structured investment vehicle, credit derivative, securitization, or repo market were meaningless. In this superb volume, Gorton makes all of this crystal clear. He shows that the securitized banking system is, in fact, a real banking system, allowing institutional investors and firms to make enormous, short-term deposits. But as any banking system, it was vulnerable to a panic. Indeed the events starting in August 2007 can best be understood not as a retail panic involving individuals, but as a wholesale panic involving institutions, where large financial firms "ran" on other financial firms, making the system insolvent.
An authority on banking panics, Gorton is the ideal person to explain the financial calamity of 2007. Indeed, as the crisis unfolded, he was working inside an institution that played a central role in the collapse. Thus, this book presents the unparalleled and invaluable perspective of a top scholar who was also a key insider.

"Robert Shiller is two for two in predicting and identifying bubbles that will burst. This book is a must read for anyone predicting future bubbles or charting the course of recovery from our current difficulties."--Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard University

"The subprime crisis has visited ruin on thousands of Americans, and it threatens the health of the global economy. In this timely and fascinating book, Robert Shiller, an expert on irrational behavior in financial markets, conducts a postmortem. How could so many smart people have been so wrong? Shiller concludes that unchecked financial innovation works poorly in asset markets, and he describes the institutions needed to prevent future bubbles."--Gregory Clark, author of "A Farewell to Alms"

"Reading this exciting book is like watching a skilled surgeon at work. The diagnosis of the subprime mortgage mess is biting in its intensity--the best I have seen--and encompasses the human tragedy as well as the economic and financial crisis. The recommended therapy develops logically from Shiller's analysis and is unique in concept as well as powerful in application. The crystal-clear writing style makes his manifesto a pleasure to read."--Peter L. Bernstein, author of "Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street" and "Capital Ideas Evolving"

"Robert Shiller is a visionary."--Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable"

"Rigorous, innovative, and accessible, "The Subprime Solution" is a wonderful book that will appeal to a wide audience. Robert Shiller is uniquely qualified to analyze the recent unprecedented problems in the mortgage and housing markets, and the way theyhave spilled over into the wider credit markets. He has again proven his ability to communicate complex ideas and evidence about financial markets."--Diane Coyle, author of "The Soulful Science"

Examining the news coverage of the economic crisis in Greece, this book develops a framework for identifying discourses of legitimation of actors, political decisions, and policies in the news. This study departs from the assumption that news is a privileged terrain where discursive struggles (over power) are represented and take place. Incorporating systematic analysis of news texts and journalistic practices, the model contextualises the analysis in its specific socio-political environment and examines legitimising discourse through the prism of the news. Ultimately the book recognises the active role played by journalists and media in legitimating economic crisis related policies and decisions, and how they help dominant actors establish and legitimate their authority, which in turn helps journalists legitimate their own role and authority. A concise, focused book that applies a strong theoretical and methodological framework, Discourse of Legitimation in the News is a strong contribution to the field for researchers and postgraduate students.

The new, fully-updated edition of the respected guide to understanding financial extremes, evaluating investment opportunities, and identifying future bubbles Now in its second edition, Boombustology is an authoritative, up-to-date guide on the history of booms, busts, and financial cycles. Engaging and accessible, this popular book helps investors, policymakers, and analysts navigate the radical uncertainty that plagues today's uncertain investing and economic environment. Author Vikram Mansharamani, an experienced global equity investor and prominent Harvard University lecturer, presents his multi-disciplinary framework for identifying financial bubbles before they burst. Moving beyond the typical view of booms and busts as primarily economic occurrences, this innovative book offers a multidisciplinary approach that utilizes microeconomic, macroeconomic, psychological, political, and biological lenses to spot unsustainable dynamics. It gives the reader insights into the dynamics that cause soaring financial markets to crash. Cases studies range from the 17th Century Dutch tulip mania to the more recent US housing collapse. The numerous cross-currents driving today's markets--trade wars, inverted yield curves, currency wars, economic slowdowns, dangerous debt dynamics, populism, nationalism, as well as the general uncertainties in the global economy--demand that investors, policymakers, and analysts be on the lookout for a forthcoming recession, market correction, or worse. An essential resource for anyone interested in financial markets, the second edition of Boombustology: Adopts multiple lenses to understand the dynamics of booms, busts, bubbles, manias, crashes Utilizes the common characteristics of past bubbles to assist in identifying future financial extremes Presents a set of practical indicators that point to a financial bubble, enabling readers to gauge the likelihood of an unsustainable boom Offers two new chapters that analyze the long-term prospects for Indian markets and the distortions being caused by the passive investing boom Includes a new foreword by James Grant, legendary editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer A comprehensive exploration of how bubbles form and why they burst, Boombustology, 2nd Edition is packed with a wealth of new and updated information for individual and institutional investors, academics, students, policymakers, risk-managers, and corporate managers alike.

This is the definitive account of the Royal Bank of Scotland scandal. For a few brief months in 2007 and 2009, the Royal Bank of Scotland was the largest bank in the world. Then the Edinburgh-based giant - having rapidly grown its footprint to 55 countries and stretched its assets to GBP2.4 trillion under its hubristic and delinquent former boss Fred Goodwin - crashed to earth. In Shredded, Ian Fraser explores the series of cataclysmic misjudgments, the toxic internal culture and the 'light touch' regulatory regime that gave rise to RBS/NatWest's near-collapse. He also considers why it became the most expensive bank in the world to bail out and why a culture of impunity was allowed to develop in the banking sector. This new edition brings the story up to date, chronicling the string of scandals that have come to light since taxpayers rescued RBS and concluding with an evaluation of the attempts of the bank's post-crisis chief executives, Stephen Hester and Ross McEwan, to dismantle Goodwin's disastrous legacy and restore the damaged institutions to health. 'A gripping account - RBS was a rogue business, operating in what had become a rogue industry, with the connivance of government. Read it and weep' - Martin Woolf, Financial Times

The bankruptcy of the investment bank Lehman Brothers was the pivotal event of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed. Ever since the bankruptcy, there has been heated debate about why the Federal Reserve did not rescue Lehman in the same way it rescued other financial institutions, such as Bear Stearns and AIG. The Fed's leaders from that time, especially former Chairman Ben Bernanke, have strongly asserted that they lacked the legal authority to save Lehman because it did not have adequate collateral for the loan it needed to survive. Based on a meticulous four-year study of the Lehman case, The Fed and Lehman Brothers debunks the official narrative of the crisis. It shows that in reality, the Fed could have rescued Lehman but officials chose not to because of political pressures and because they underestimated the damage that the bankruptcy would do to the economy. The compelling story of the Lehman collapse will interest anyone who cares about what caused the financial crisis, whether the leaders of the Federal Reserve have given accurate accounts of their actions, and how the Fed can prevent future financial disasters.

In international commentary and debate on the effects of the Great Recession and austerity, Ireland has been hailed as the poster child for economic recovery and regeneration out of deep economic and fiscal contraction. While the genesis of Ireland's financial, economic, and fiscal crisis has been covered in the literature, no systematic analysis has yet been devoted to the period of austerity, to the impact of austerity on institutions and people, or to the roots of economic recovery. In this book a group of Ireland's leading social scientists present a multidisciplinary analysis of recession and austerity and their effects on economic, business, political, and social life. Individual chapters discuss the fiscal and economic policies implemented, the role of international, and, in particular, of EU institutions, and the effects on businesses, consumption, work, the labour market, migration, political and financial institutions, social inequality and cohesion, housing, and cultural expression. The book shows that Ireland cannot be viewed uncritically as a poster child for austerity. While fiscal contraction provided a basis for stabilizing the perilous finances of the state, economic recovery was due in the main to the long-established structure of Irish economic and business activity, to the importance of foreign direct investment and the dynamic export sector, and to recovery in the international economy. The restructuring and recovery of the financial system was aided by favourable international developments, including historically low interest rates and quantitative easing. Migration flows, nominal wage stability, the protection of social transfer payments, and the involvement of trade unions in severe public sector retrenchment - long-established features of Irish political economy - were of critical importance in the maintenance of social cohesion.

Some of the worst effects of the global economic downturn that commenced in 2008 have been felt in Europe, and specifically in the Eurozone's so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) and Cyprus. This edited volume is the first collection to bring together ethnographies of living with austerity inside the Eurozone, and explore how people across Southern Europe have come to understand their experiences of increased social suffering, insecurity, and material poverty. The contributors focus on how crises stimulate temporal thought (temporality), whether tilted in the direction of historicizing, presentifying, futural thought, or some combination of these possibilities. One of the themes linking diverse crisis experiences across national boundaries is how people contemplate their present conditions and potential futures in terms of the past. The studies in this collection thus supply ethnographies that journey to the source of historical production by identifying the ways in which the past may be activated, lived, embodied, and refashioned under contracting economic horizons. In times of crisis modern linear historicism is often overridden (and overwritten) by other historicities showing that in crises not only time, but history itself as an organizing structure and set of expectations, is up for grabs and can be refashioned according to new rules. This book was originally published as a special issue of History and Anthropology.

In 2008, the world was plunged into a financial and economic crash. This book explores the roots of the crash, including the build-up of global economic imbalances, the explosion in the use of novel financial instruments, the mismanagement of risk, and the specific roles played by housing and debt. It reviews the evidence that on the eve of the crash all was not well and that many political and finance industry leaders ignored the dangers. The key events of the crash are described, and the main amplification mechanisms explained. An economics lens is used to dissect the bank rescue, paying particular attention to the hidden ways in which it worked, who will ultimately bear the costs, and to what degree new risks were created. The book evaluates the fiscal and monetary policies used to rescue economies, efforts to tackle unemployment, proposals for dealing with collapsing housing markets, austerity and the battles over long-term sovereign debt, the Eurozone crash, and the risks of future economic instability. It reviews reform-of mortgage markets, monetary policy, and banking-designed to make such disasters less likely in future. Written before, during, and in the years immediately after the crash, it is an engaging chronicle and comprehensive analysis of the events and thinking of these years. The book's arguments take on added authority given that the author had identified, and called attention to, key features of the crash before it happened.

Systemic Risk opens new ground in the study of financial crises. It treats the financial system as a complex adaptive system and shows how lessons from network disciplines - such as ecology, epidemiology, and statistical mechanics - shed light on our understanding of financial stability. Using tools from network theory and economics, it suggests that financial systems are robust-yet-fragile, with knife-edge properties that are greatly exacerbated by the hoarding of funds and the fire sale of assets by banks. This book studies the damaging network consequences of the failure of large inter-connected institutions, explains how key funding markets can seize up across the entire financial system, and shows how the pursuit of secured finance by banks in the wake of the global financial crisis can generate systemic risks. The insights are then used to model banking systems calibrated to data to illustrate how financial sector regulators are beginning to quantify financial system stress.

The financial crisis of 2007-08 and the Great Recession caused more widespread economic trauma than any event since the Great Depression. With a slow and uneven recovery, encouraging stability and growth is critical. Financial Restructuring to Sustain Recovery maintains that while each part of the financial services industry can play a useful role in revving up the U.S. economic engine to full capacity, the necessary reforms are sometimes subtle and often difficult to implement. Editors Martin Neil Baily, Richard Herring, and Yuta Seki and their coauthors break recovery down by three areas: Restructuring the housing finance market Reforming the bankruptcy process Reenergizing the market for initial public offerings Included are lessons drawn from Japan's experience in overcoming its long-lasting financial crisis after the collapse of its real estate market in the 1990s. Contributors: Franklin Allen (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA), James R. Barth (Auburn University College of Business; Milken Institute), Thomas Jackson (Simon School of Business, University of Rochester), Jay R. Ritter (Warrington College of Business, University of Florida, USA), David Skeel (University of Pennsylvania Law School, USA), and Glenn Yago (Milken Institute).

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology Volume 38A features a symposium on public finance in the history of economic thought co-edited by guest editors Claire Silvant and Javier San Julian Arrupe, as well as general-research essays from Cosma Orsi and John Henry, and a heartfelt obituary by Mattheus Assaf of his friend, Gabriel Oliva, winner of RHETM's first Warren Samuels Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology. Including chapters on British public debt in the 19th century, French financial controversies in the mid-1800s, and a thoughtful reflection on the USA's New Deal, this volume is a global exploration of public finance history. For any researcher or student interested in the history of economics, this is an essential read containing the most up-to-date research.

Following the financial and public debt crisis, the EU's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has been under intense political scrutiny. The measures adopted in response to the crisis have granted additional powers to the EU (and national) authorities, the exercise of which can have massive implications for the economies of the Member States, financial institutions and, of course, citizens. The following questions arise: how can we hold accountable those institutions that are exercising power at the national and EU level? What is the appropriate level, type and degree of accountability and transparency that should be involved in the development of the EU's governance structures in the areas of fiscal and economic governance and the Banking Union? What is the role of parliaments and courts in holding those institutions accountable for the exercise of their duties? Is the revised EMU framework democratically legitimate? How can we bridge the gap between the citizens - and the institutions that represent them - and those institutions that are making these important decisions in the field of economic and monetary policy? This book principally examines the mechanisms for political and legal accountability in the EMU and the Banking Union. It examines the implications that the reforms of EU economic governance have had for the locus and strength of executive power in the Union, as well as the role of parliaments (and other political fora) and courts in holding the institutions acting in this area accountable for the exercise of their tasks. It further sets out several proposals regarding transparency, accountability, and legitimacy in the EMU.

Italy from Crisis to Crisis seeks to understand Italy's approach to crises by studying the country in regional, international, and comparative context. Without assuming that the country is abnormal or unusually crisis-prone, the authors treat Italy as an example from which other countries might learn. The book integrates the analysis of domestic politics and foreign policy, including Italy's approach to military interventions, energy security, economic relations with the European Union (EU), and to the NATO alliance, and covers a number of issues that normally receive little attention in studies of "high politics," such as information policy, national identity, immigration, youth unemployment, and family relations. Finally, it puts Italy in a comparative perspective - with other European states, naturally - but also with Latin America, and even the United States, all countries that have experienced similar crises to Italy's and similar - often populist - responses. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of, and courses on, Italian politics and history, European politics and, more broadly, comparative politics and democracy.