Gordon Brown was a past-master at sneaking in new taxes by stealth, but his efforts as Chancellor and then Prime Minister were merely the latest in a long line of party leaders desperate to extract more money from reluctant taxpayers. This book challenges the need for government to resort to such underhand practices which undermine the economy, killing the goose which lays the golden eggs, and the integrity of the political process. The author argues that not only does taxation flout the principle of private property, but it 'is a primal cause of both inflation and unemployment. Regardless of this, the freely elected governments of contemporary trading economies - with the acquiescence of their electorates - persist in raising the major part, if not all, of their revenues by means of taxation. The immediate cause of such action by governments...is ignorance of any acceptable alternative method of raising sufficient public revenue.' Burgess shows how the development of Keynes' general theory of employment 'leads to the conclusion that an open trading economy is likely to be most competitive, and therefore most prosperous, only when taxation is abolished' - but government must be funded. How can this be done without taxation? To provide an answer he refines Alfred Marshall's distinction between the public and private value of property to reveal an alternative, peculiarly public source of revenue. Unlike a tax, defined by a former Labour Chancellor, Hugh Dalton, as 'a compulsory contribution imposed by a public authority, irrespective of the exact amount of service rendered to the taxpayer in return', the 'public value' identified by Marshall would deliver an exact equivalence between the benefits enjoyed and the amount paid. On the basis of this widely accepted definition, therefore, it is not a tax but the price for services rendered like any other transaction - the price fixed by the market. The author shows how reform may be introduced with a minimum of disruption, so that politicians with an eye to re-election can achieve measurable results during the lifetime of a parliament.

Small jurisdictions have become significant players in cross-border corporate and financial services. Their nature, legal status, and market roles, however, remain under-theorized. Lacking a sufficiently nuanced framework to describe their functions in cross-border finance - and the peculiar strengths of those achieving global dominance in the marketplace - it remains impossible to evaluate their impacts in a comprehensive manner. This book advances a new conceptual framework to refine the analysis and direct it toward more productive inquiries. Bruner canvasses extant theoretical frameworks used to describe and evaluate the roles of small jurisdictions in cross-border finance. He then proposes a new concept that better captures the characteristics, competitive strategies, and market roles of those achieving global dominance in the marketplace - the "market-dominant small jurisdiction" (MDSJ). Bruner identifies the central features giving rise to such jurisdictions' competitive strengths - some reflect historical, cultural, and geographic circumstances, while others reflect development strategies pursued in light of those circumstances. Through this lens, he evaluates a range of small jurisdictions that have achieved global dominance in specialized areas of cross-border finance, including Bermuda, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Delaware. Bruner further tests the MDSJ concept's explanatory power through a broader comparative analysis, and he concludes that the MDSJs' significance will likely continue to grow - as will the need for a more effective means of theorizing their roles in cross-border finance and the global dynamics generated by their ascendance.

Using a framework of volatile markets Emerging Market Bank Lending and Credit Risk Control covers the theoretical and practical foundations of contemporary credit risk with implications for bank management. Drawing a direct connection between risk and its effects on credit analysis and decisions, the book discusses how credit risk should be correctly anticipated and its impact mitigated within framework of sound credit culture and process in line with the Basel Accords. This is the only practical book that specifically guides bankers through the analysis and management of the peculiar credit risks of counterparties in emerging economies. Each chapter features a one-page overview that introduces its subject and its outcomes. Chapters include summaries, review questions, references, and endnotes.

Public stock markets are too small. This book is an effort to rescue public stock markets in the EU and the US. There should be more companies with publicly-traded shares and more direct share ownership. Anchored in a broad historical study of the regulation of stock markets and companies in Europe and the US, the book proposes ways to create a new regulatory regime designed to help firms and facilitate people's capitalism. Through its comparative and historical study of regulation and legal practices, the book helps to understand the evolution of public stock markets from the nineteenth century to the present day. The book identifies design principles that reflect prior regulation. While continental European company law has produced many enduring design principles, the recent regulation of stock markets in the EU and the US has failed to serve the needs of both firms and retail investors. The book therefore proposes a new set of design principles to serve contemporary societal needs.

The winner of the 2020 British Insurance Law Association Book Prize, this timely, expertly written book looks at the legal impact that the use of 'Big Data' will have on the provision - and substantive law - of insurance. Insurance companies are set to become some of the biggest consumers of big data which will enable them to profile prospective individual insureds at an increasingly granular level. More particularly, the book explores how: (i) insurers gain access to information relevant to assessing risk and/or the pricing of premiums; (ii) the impact which that increased information will have on substantive insurance law (and in particular duties of good faith disclosure and fair presentation of risk); and (iii) the impact that insurers' new knowledge may have on individual and group access to insurance. This raises several consequential legal questions: (i) To what extent is the use of big data analytics to profile risk compatible (at least in the EU) with the General Data Protection Regulation? (ii) Does insurers' ability to parse vast quantities of individual data about insureds invert the information asymmetry that has historically existed between insured and insurer such as to breathe life into insurers' duty of good faith disclosure? And (iii) by what means might legal challenges be brought against insurers both in relation to the use of big data and the consequences it may have on access to cover? Written by a leading expert in the field, this book will both stimulate further debate and operate as a reference text for academics and practitioners who are faced with emerging legal problems arising from the increasing opportunities that big data offers to the insurance industry.

The books deals with the questions that really matter for green finance: Where will the money to finance the transition to a low carbon environment come from, how far do the banks' balance sheets stretch and where will the rest of the money come from? How much can we rely on the capital markets, especially in the EU, to get money to the parts of the economy which really need it, without greenwashing? How do governments organize not just a transition, but a just transition to a low carbon environment? Is it time to revisit received ideas about the proper role for central banks?