Cryptocurrencies have had a profound effect on financial markets worldwide. This edited book aims to explore the economic implications of the use of cryptocurrencies. Drawing from chapter contributors from around the world, the book will be a valuable resource on the economics of cryptocurrencies. The intended audience is composed of academics, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, government leaders, consultants and policy makers worldwide. Over the past few years, the topic of cryptocurrencies has gained global attention and has been the subject of discussion in various news media, in policy-making bodies and government entities, and in financial institutions, classrooms and boardrooms. Despite widespread interest, much remains unknown on what the economic implications of cryptocurrencies are. This book enhances the reader's understanding of cryptocurrencies, its impact on industry and its implications on the political and economic environment. Drawing from chapter contributions from leading academics and thought leaders from around the world, this book is the definitive guide on the economics of cryptocurrencies. There is scarcity of well conceived, academically grounded literature on the impact of cryptocurrencies on industry, politics and economics. This pioneering book provides up-to-date and in-depth analysis on the subject. The book will be appealing to academic communities, business professionals and entrepreneurs in their quest for better understanding the challenges and opportunities brought about by cryptocurrencies. Consultants, government officials and policy makers will find the information helpful in defining strategic pathways into the future.

Research programmes in economics usually emerge from the intersection between a new analytical approach and a real economic problem. In the last few years, such a programme has emerged in international monetary economics, which is underpinned by a theoretical framework grounded in stochastic calculus and the increasing prominence in the real world of the international monetary arrangements under which national monetary authorities attempt to keep exchange rates within bands or 'target zones'. This new programme of research also covers switches in exchange rate regimes. This volume from the Centre for economic Policy Research and the National Bureau of Economic Research includes contributions - as authors or discussants - from most of the active participants in the development of this new field, and will serve as a useful introduction and basic text for this new research programme. It opens with an account of the basic economic model of a currency band developed by Paul Krugman, which is followed by two papers that extend this approach. Other chapters study the regime switches entailed in Britain's return to the gold standard in 1925 and the preannounced entry of a floating currency into a band such as the EMS. Essays on sustainability and realignment consider the possible outcomes of speculative attacks on such bands, and the volume ends with a paper on econometric testing of models of this type.

Recent efforts to create a European Central Bank (ECB) have stimulated debate on new topics for research into the political economy of the European Community's institutions. These include the exact division of responsibilities of national governments and the ECB - especially concerning exchange rate policy; the need for and design of constraints on national fiscal policies; and the nature of the transition from adjustable parities and national monetary policies to irrevocably fixed parities and a single European monetary policy. The book also considers the implications of EMU for the international monetary system - for the use of the ECU as a reserve currency and for policy co-ordination among the G-7 countries. The volume thus provides a comprehensive examination of the issues that will be decisive for Europe in its choice of monetary institutions.

In the near future the UK will need to decide whether or not to join the euro. Yet few of us really understand the issues at stake. Will the Government lose control of the economy if we join or will we lose investment and weaken our international voice if we remain outside the euro? When, if ever, will the time be right to join?
In this clear, accessible guide, Paul Temperton, explains in a straightforward and totally impartial manner the pros and cons of the UK joining the euro. This book contains all the information necessary for the layperson to make up his or her own mind about an issue that will affect the lives of everybody living in the UK.

Monetary Policy and the Onset of the Great Depression challenges Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's now-consensus view that the high tide of the Federal Reserve System in the 1920s was due to the leadership skills of Benjamin Strong, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In this new work, Toma develops a self-regulated model of the Federal Reserve, which stands in contrast to a conventional discretionary model. Given the easy redemption of dollars for gold and the competition among Reserve banks, the self-regulated model implies that the early Fed could control neither the money supply nor the price level. Exploiting an untapped data set, later chapters test the thesis of self-regulation by focusing on the monetary decisions of individual Reserve banks.
The micro-based evidence indicates that "Reserve banks really did compete" - and that Benjamin Strong as decisive leader during the 1920s is a myth. This finding, with its emphasis on monetary policy in the years leading up to the Great Depression, will be of interest to scholars, students, and sophisticated lay readers with an interest in macroeconomic and monetary economic policy issues, specifically to those with an interest in economic history.

This book delves into the many innovative changes that the financial industry has undergone in recent years. The authors investigate these developments in a holistic manner and from a wide range of perspectives: both public and private, business and consumer, regulators and supervisors. Initially, they set the framework of their analysis by discussing innovation cycles in financial services. Thereafter, they tackle the issue of financial innovations and their consequences for financial stability. They then review the new approaches to financial consumers' protection, which emerged in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The authors underline the fact that this new approach is heavily influenced by the recent innovative drive in the financial industry. Next, they switch their attention to the public sector, examining the innovative processes in monetary policy and central banks, structural innovations in the supervisory models and systems, and they assess some specific supervisory challenges regarding blockchain and the application of mathematics in the supervisory capacity. Additionally, the book examines a range of issues related to the private sector, such as recent developments regarding risk transferring mechanisms on the financial market, artificial intelligence and natural language processing for regulatory filings, the development of process management in insurance companies and other innovative products on the market. Finally, Innovation in Financial Services discusses how the digital transformation of the financial system impacts the interaction between the public and private sectors. The book is intended for graduate and postgraduate level students, researchers, public sector officers, as well as financial sector practitioners.

This book reveals the surprising role that credit, money created ex nihilo by financiers, played in raising the British government's war loans between 1793 and 1815. Using often overlooked contemporary objections to the National Debt a startling paradox is revealed as it is shown how the government's ostensible creditors had, in fact, very little "real" money to lend and were instead often reliant for their own solvency upon the very government they were lending to. By following the careers of unsuccessful loan-contractors, who went bankrupt lending to the government, to the triumphant career of the House of Rothschild; who successfully "exported" the British system of war-financing abroad with the coming of peace, the symbiotic relationship that existed between the British government and their ostensible creditors is revealed. Also highlighted is the power granted to the (technically bankrupt) Bank of England over credit and the money supply, an unprecedented and highly influential development that filled many contemporaries with horror. This is a tale of bankruptcy, stock market manipulation, bribery and institutional corruption that continues to exert its influence today and will be of interest to anyone interested in government financing, debt and the origins of modern finance.

Today, most scholars agree that mismanaged monetary policy contributed to the length and severity of the Great Depression. There is little agreement, however, about the causes of the Federal Reserve's mistakes. Some argue that leadership and other organizational changes prior to the depression caused a distinct change in policy strategy that lessened the Fed's responsiveness to economic conditions, while others contend that there was no change in the Fed's behavior, and that errors during the depression are traceable to previous policies. This book examines the policy strategy developed by the Federal Reserve during the 1920s and considers whether its continued use could explain the Fed's failure to respond vigorously to the depression. It also studies the effects on policy of the institutional changes occurring prior to the depression. While these changes enhanced the authority of officials who opposed open-market purchases and also caused some upward bias in discount rates, Wheelock concludes that monetary policy during the depression was in fact largely a continuation of the previous policy. The apparent contrast in Fed responsiveness to economic conditions between the 1920s and early 1930s resulted from the consistent use of a procyclical policy strategy that caused the Fed to respond more vigorously to minor recessions than to severe depressions.

Recently, students and scholars have expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of economics and have called for the reintroduction of historical perspectives into economic thinking. Supporting the idea that fruitful lessons can be drawn from the work of past economists, this volume brings together an international cross section of leading economists and historians of economic thought to reflect on the crucial role that money, crises and finance play in the economy. The book draws on the work of economists throughout history to consider afresh themes such as financial and real explanations of economic crises, the role of central banks, and the design of macroeconomic policies. These themes are all central to the work of Maria Cristina Marcuzzo, and the contributions both reflect on and further her research agenda. This book will be of interest to researchers in the history of economic thought, and those who wish to gain a deeper understanding of the variety and diversity in approaches to economic ideas throughout history.

In the wake of the Greek crisis, the future of the EU is the subject of a great deal of debate. This book critically evaluates the current new monetarist model of Economic and Monetary Union in Europe, presenting an alternative post-Keynesian (progressive) model, aimed at addressing the current problems of trade imbalance and asymmetric macroeconomic policy infrastructure that are augmenting tensions within the Eurozone. The book's approach is based upon the development of a common, rather than a single, currency approach, and utilises post-Keynesian policy solutions in order to create a form of EMU which will promote full employment rather than austerity.

This book represents the third of three volumes offering a complete reinterpretation and restructuring of Keynesian macroeconomics and a detailed investigation of the disequilibrium adjustment processes characterizing the financial, the goods and the labour markets and their interaction. This book offers a full treatment of the interlinkages between the real and the financial markets, including an analysis of banking, credit, and endogenous money and asset markets. It remains critical of quite frequently used conventional macro models that have dropped the tradition of studying the macroeconomic feedback channels, well-known in the history of macroeconomics. Those feedback mechanisms are known to have the potential for instabilities with respect to real markets, price dynamics and financial markets. In this volume a particular emphasis is given to the financial-real interaction. The research in this book with its focus on Keynesian propagation mechanisms provides a unique alternative to the black-box shock-absorber approaches that dominate modern macroeconomics. The main conclusion of the work is that policy makers need to reconsider Keynesian ideas, but in the modern form in which they are expressed in this volume. Reconstructing Keynesian Macroeconomics will be of interest to students and researchers who want to look at alternatives to the mainstream macrodynamics that emerged from the Monetarist critique of Keynesianism. This book will also engage central bankers and macroeconomic policy makers.

The 2008 credit crisis started with the failure of one large bank: Lehman Brothers. Since then the focus of both politicians and regulators has been on stabilising the economy and preventing future financial instability. At this juncture, we are at the last stage of future-proofing the financial sector by raising capital requirements and tightening financial regulation. Now the policy agenda needs to concentrate on transforming the banking sector into an engine for growth. Reviving competition in the banking sector after the state interventions of the past years is a key step in this process. This book introduces and explains a relatively new concept in competition measurement: the performance-conduct-structure (PCS) indicator. The key idea behind this measure is that a firm's efficiency is more highly rewarded in terms of market share and profit, the stronger competitive pressure is. The book begins by explaining the financial market's fundamental obstacles to competition presenting a brief survey of the complex relationship between financial stability and competition. The theoretical contributions of Hay and Liu and Boone provide the theoretical underpinning for the PCS indicator, while its application to banking and insurance illustrates its empirical qualities. Finally, this book presents a systematic comparison between the results of this approach and (all) existing methods as applied to 46 countries, over the same sample period. This book presents a comprehensive overview of the knowns and unknowns of financial sector competition for commercial and central bankers, policy-makers, supervisors and academics alike.

In recent years, exchanges on both sides of the Atlantic have been extensively reengineered, and their organizational structures have changed from non-profit, membership organizations to for-profit, demutualized organizations. Concurrently, new alternative trading systems have emerged and the traditional functions of broker/dealer firms have evolved. How have these changes affected the delivery of that mission? How has the efficiency of capital raising in the IPO market been impacted? These are among the key questions addressed in this book, titled after the Baruch College Conference, The Economic Function of a Stock Market. Featuring contributions from a panel of scholars, academicians, policymakers, and industry leaders, this volume examines current issues affecting market quality, including challenges in the marketplace, growth opportunities, and IPO capital raising in the global economy. The Zicklin School of Business Financial Markets Series presents the insights emerging from a sequence of conferences hosted by the Zicklin School at Baruch College for industry professionals, regulators, and scholars. Much more than historical documents, the transcripts from the conferences are edited for clarity, perspective and context; material and comments from subsequent interviews with the panelists and speakers are integrated for a complete thematic presentation. Each book is focused on a well delineated topic, but all deliver broader insights into the quality and efficiency of the U.S. equity markets and the dynamic forces changing them.

Since the military coup d'etat in 1964 Brazil has experienced a period of almost uninterrupted inflation measured in tens and sometimes hundreds of per cent per year. In this book, originally published in 1991, Vincent Parkin sets out to explain the nature and causes of chronic inflation in middle-income developing countries by focusing on the Brazilian experience. He rejects the monetarist explanation for inflation and argues instead that the relationship between money and inflation is seldom clear-cut. The book will be of interest to all economists concerned with inflation and Latin America.

China's financial reforms have undergone a large-scale transformation over the past several years. This book aims to outline the structure and current features of China's monetary policy, drawing upon the author's years of experience working within the People's Bank of China and insider's view of the decision-making process.

Why are financial prices so much more crisis-prone and unstable than real economy prices? Because they are doing different things. Unlike real economy prices, rooted in the real goods and services produced and exchanged, financial prices attempt to value future income flows from financial and capital assets. These valuations fluctuate erratically because expectations of the future fluctuate - and large liquid financial markets can amplify, rather than correct, these effects. The book builds on the insights of economists Frank Knight and John Maynard Keynes, that uncertainty of the future is essential to understand the processes of economic production and capital investment, and adds to this Karl Popper's general explanation of how expectations of an uncertain future are formed and tested through a trial and error process. Rather than relying on fluctuating financial prices to provide a guide to an uncertain future, it suggests a better approach would be to adopt the methods common to other branches of science, and create testable (falsifiable) theories allowing reasonable predictions to be made. In finance, the elements of one such theory could be based on the concept of forecasting yield from capital assets, which is a measurable phenomenon tending towards aggregate and long-term stability, and where there is a plentiful supply of historic data. By methods like this, financial economics could become a branch of science like any other. To buttress this approach, the widely accepted public policy objective of promoting real economy price stability could be widened to include financial price stability.

Through a detailed examination of proverbs related to money, this book offers a comprehensive critique of the prevailing everyday ideologies and discourses on money and paves the way toward establishing a new set of proverbs more conducive to financial equality and human well-being. The volume explores a variety of contexts to demonstrate the different aspects of the money system and the linguistic and social structures embedded within them, including pay day loan websites, gambling, get rich self-help books, and new forms of currency. Unpacking this complex relationship between people, money, and language in contemporary society, this book is an ideal resource for students and scholars in language and communication, sociolinguistics, rhetoric, sociology, and media studies.

Money and payments are familiar to everybody. Economists however are often at a loss in assessing the extent to which money matters. As a matter of fact, money is at the origin of the main cleavage in economic theory. Beyond sophisticated models what is at stake is whether money is just an appearance which hides the essence of economic life (value and happiness of people) or, on the contrary, the very substance of economic relations, not limited to exchanges, in which power and sovereignty are ever present. In a first part, the author shows how fragile and shaky are the attempts made by value theoreticians to integrate money into their analysis. In a second part, he develops a rigorous alternative theory by giving strong logical foundations to a monetary analysis in the spirit of Keynes. Many important economic phenomena left unexplained by academic theory are accounted for (involuntary equilibrium unemployment), a new method in dynamics is resorted to (viability theory) and various economic relations are elucidated which are not reducible to exchange, the only one dealt with by academic theoreticians. This is the case of the wage relationship. Although written in view of an audience acquainted with economic theory, this book can be read nevertheless by a larger circle since the technicalities have been reduced to what is strictly necessary to understand what is at stake.

The Crypto Market Ecosystem has emerged as the most profound application of blockchain technology in finance. This textbook adopts an integrated approach, linking traditional functions of the current financial system (payments, traded assets, fundraising, regulation) with the respective functions in the crypto market, in order to facilitate the reader in their understanding of how this new ecosystem works. The book walks the reader through the main features of the blockchain technology, the definitions, classifications, and distinct characteristics of cryptocurrencies and tokens, how these are evaluated, how funds are raised in the cryptocurrency ecosystem (ICOs), and what the main regulatory approaches are. The authors have compiled more than 100 sources from different sub-fields of economics, finance, and regulation to create a coherent textbook that provides the reader with a clear and easily understandable picture of the new world of encrypted finance and its applications. The book is primarily aimed at business and finance students, who already have an understanding of the basic principles of how the financial system works, but also targets a more general readership, by virtue of its broader scope and engaging and accessible tone.

The Crypto Market Ecosystem has emerged as the most profound application of blockchain technology in finance. This textbook adopts an integrated approach, linking traditional functions of the current financial system (payments, traded assets, fundraising, regulation) with the respective functions in the crypto market, in order to facilitate the reader in their understanding of how this new ecosystem works. The book walks the reader through the main features of the blockchain technology, the definitions, classifications, and distinct characteristics of cryptocurrencies and tokens, how these are evaluated, how funds are raised in the cryptocurrency ecosystem (ICOs), and what the main regulatory approaches are. The authors have compiled more than 100 sources from different sub-fields of economics, finance, and regulation to create a coherent textbook that provides the reader with a clear and easily understandable picture of the new world of encrypted finance and its applications. The book is primarily aimed at business and finance students, who already have an understanding of the basic principles of how the financial system works, but also targets a more general readership, by virtue of its broader scope and engaging and accessible tone.

The authors of this book argue that post-war fiscal and monetary policies in the U.S. are prone to more frequent and more destabilizing domestic and international financial crises. So, in the aftermath of the one that erupted in 2008, they propose that now we are sleepwalking into another, which under the prevailing institutional circumstances could develop into a worldwide financial Armageddon. Thinking ahead of such a calamity, this book presents for the first time a model of democratic governance with privately produced money based on the case of Athens in Classical times, and explains why, if it is conceived as a benchmark for reference and adaptation, it may provide an effective way out from the dreadful predicament that state managed fiat money holds for the stability of Western-type democracies and the international financial system. As the U.S. today, Athens at that time reached the apex of its military, economic, political, cultural, and scientific influence in the world. But Athens triumphed through different approaches to democracy and fundamentally different fiscal and monetary policies than the U.S. Thus the readers will have the opportunity to learn about these differences and appreciate the potential they offer for confronting the challenges contemporary democracies face under the leadership of the U.S. The book will find audiences among academics, university students, and researchers across a wide range of fields and subfields, as well as legislators, fiscal and monetary policy makers, and economic and financial consultants.

Building the "new Europe" is at the core of the new international economic and political initiatives leading the world through the 1990s and toward the 21st century. This challenge rests on dual processes: on the one hand, the European Community-wide single market and monetary integration; and, on the other, the East European transition to the market place and integration with Western economies. This second of two volumes is divided into two parts. The first section includes essays on the general and specific topics linked to the transitions to a market economy and to a pluralist political system. The second section comprises essays on individual countries, such as Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Republics of the former Soviet Union.

This book provides a much-needed detailed analysis of the evolution of Europe over the last decade, as well as a discussion about the path of reform that has been trodden in the aftermath of the financial crisis. It offers a multidisciplinary view of the E(M)U and captures the main factors that induced the reform of the monetary union - a process that has not been linear and is far from being concluded. The author examines the policy responses designed throughout the development of the crisis and assesses the scale of the crisis in Europe, in comparison to other parts of the world, as well as its prolonged effects both in economic and financial terms. An update on the current 'state of the art' in the conception of risk-sharing mechanisms is provided. With its innovative approach, the book analyses the financing issues which need to be taken into consideration in the design of these instruments and highlights the main categories of governmental risk-sharing mechanisms - in particular, the ones to be used as 'fiscal capacity'. This is a timely and topical book and will be of interest to a broad audience, including experts, scholars and students of European affairs, particularly those with economic, financial, legal and political science backgrounds.

On 1 January 2002, euro banknotes and coins were introduced in twelve EU Member States. Three more countries joined in the following years, and over 300 million people now use the euro in their daily transactions. The currency changeover was a technical success. From the very start, however, the vast majority of euro area citizens held the single currency responsible for a sharp rise in prices and a subsequent decline in their personal economic fortunes.

This book puts forward convincing empirical evidence, primarily drawn from Italya (TM)s experience, to establish whether the introduction of the euro has had a major impact on prices, and if not, why so many people believe it has. Its significance lies not only in the documentation of a historic event, but also and more importantly, in the lessons it provides, which concern the publica (TM)s understanding of inflation, the correct assessment of the effects of the single currency, and the need for appropriate measures when other countries adopt the euro.

The book reveals how the Global Credit Bubble and Bust of 2003-10 stemmed from giant monetary disequilibrium created by the Federal Reserve. Almost continually that institution has pursued flawed monetary practice and principle which has mutated into Bernanke-ism. The book dissects this and shows how it threatens the return of economic prosperity.