How the unaccountable, unmonitorable, and unchecked actions of regulators precipitated the global financial crisis; and how to reform the system. The recent financial crisis was an accident, a “perfect storm” fueled by an unforeseeable confluence of events that unfortunately combined to bring down the global financial systems. Or at least this is the story told and retold by a chorus of luminaries that includes Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan. In Guardians of Finance, economists James Barth, Gerard Caprio, and Ross Levine argue that the financial meltdown of 2007 to 2009 was no accident; it was negligent homicide. They show that senior regulatory officials around the world knew or should have known that their policies were destabilizing the global financial system and yet chose not to act until the crisis had fully emerged. Barth, Caprio, and Levine propose a reform to counter this systemic failure: the establishment of a “Sentinel” to provide an informed, expert, and independent assessment of financial regulation. Its sole power would be to demand information and to evaluate it from the perspective of the public—rather than that of the financial industry, the regulators, or politicians.

Since the financial crisis, amid outrage at the likes of Citigroup and JPMorganChase and Washington's rejiggering of the financial system, the banking industry has had one major defender: Richard X. Bove. Now he explains why big banks are the nation's lifeline to success, and why financial disaster will ensue if we make it impossible for them to fill their role in the economy. Bove argues that big banks are necessary to ensure America's position in global finance; to assist corporations in achieving their goals against foreign competition; and, most importantly, to defend the average household's access to financial services.

Political and social forces exert pressure on our globalized economy in many forms, from formal and informal policies to financial theories and technical models. Our efforts to shape and direct these forces to preserve financial stability reveal much about the ways we perceive the financial economy. The Handbook of Safeguarding Global Financial Stability examines our political economy, particularly the ways in which these forces inhabit our institutions, strategies, and tactics. As economies expand and contract, these forces also determine the ways we supervise and regulate. This high-level examination of the global political economy includes articles about specific countries, crises, and international systems as well as broad articles about major concepts and trends.. Substantial articles by top scholars sets this volume apart from other information sources Diverse international perspectives result in new opportunities for analysis and research Rapidly developing subjects will interest readers well into the future

The dramatic and uplifting story of legendary outdoorsman and conservationist John Muir’s journey to become the man who saved Yosemite—from the author of the bestselling Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival. In June of 1889 in San Francisco, John Muir—iconic environmentalist, writer, and philosopher—meets face-to-face for the first time with his longtime editor Robert Underwood Johnson, an elegant and influential figure at The Century magazine. Before long, the pair, opposites in many ways, decide to venture to Yosemite Valley, the magnificent site where twenty years earlier, Muir experienced a personal and spiritual awakening that would set the course of the rest of his life. Upon their arrival the men are confronted with a shocking vision, as predatory mining, tourism, and logging industries have plundered and defaced “the grandest of all the special temples of Nature.” While Muir is consumed by grief, Johnson, a champion of society’s most pressing debates via the pages of the nation’s most prestigious magazine, decides that he and Muir must fight back. The pact they form marks a watershed moment, leading to the creation of Yosemite National Park, and launching an environmental battle that captivates the nation and ushers in the beginning of the American environmental movement. Beautifully rendered, deeply researched, and inspiring, Guardians of the Valley is a moving story of friendship, the written word, and the transformative power of nature. It is also a timely and powerful “origin story” as the toweringly complex environmental challenges we face today become increasingly urgent.

This title begins its description of how we created a financially-intergrated world by first examining the history of financial globalization, from Roman practices and Ottoman finance to Chinese standards, the beginnings of corporate practices, and the advent of efforts to safeguard financial stability.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, beneficiary organizations—like pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, and foundations—have been seeking ways to mitigate the risk of their investments and make better financial decisions. For them, Reframing Finance offers a path forward. This book argues that institutional investors would better serve their long-term goals by putting money into large-scale, future-facing projects such as infrastructure, green energy, innovation in agriculture, and real estate development. At the same time, redirecting long-term investments would close significant financial gaps that government cannot. Drawing on key contributions in economic sociology, social network theory, and economics, the book conceptualizes a collaborative model of investment that is already becoming increasingly common: Large investors contribute more directly to private market assets, while financial intermediaries seek to foster co-investment partnerships, better aligning incentives for all. A combination of rich case studies and rigorous theory enables asset owners to move toward more efficient, private-market investing, while also laying groundwork for research at the frontier of finance.

Written for undergraduate and graduate students of finance, economics and business, the third edition of Financial Markets and Institutions provides a fresh analysis of the European financial system. Combining theory, data and policy, this successful textbook examines and explains financial markets, financial infrastructures, financial institutions and the challenges of financial supervision and competition policy. The third edition features greater discussion of the financial and euro crises, including extensive analysis of their causes and impact, as well as their remedies. New material covers unconventional monetary policies, the Banking Union, the Basel 3 capital adequacy framework for banking supervision, macroprudential policies and state aid control applied to banks. The new edition also features wider international coverage, with greater emphasis on comparisons with countries outside the European Union. Visit the companion website at www.cambridge.org/de_Haan3e for password-protected PowerPoint lecture slides, solutions, figures and tables for instructors, and exercises for students.

" Public money is perhaps the quintessential currency of influence for politicians and public servants inside government. It shapes how they undertake the nations business and it impacts on the standards of living in the country. The Politics of Public Money examines the extent to which the influence of players in the budgetary process is shifting from a bilateral relationship between departmental spenders and central guardians to a more complex multilateral relationship involving spenders and central guardians, as well as priority setters and financial watchdogs. David Good analyzes this shift of influence in terms of a broader societal change from an old village, conditioned by old norms of behaviour, to a new town that brings with it new ideas about how much public money should be spent, where it should be spent, and how it should be managed. To better understand the changing situation, Good develops a new framework for analyzing the politics and management of public money. This framework is used to explore the interactions among budget players and, perhaps the most central of all, the relationship between Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. As an analysis of the changing budgetary process and an examination of the promises and pitfalls of budgetary reform, The Politics of Public Money sheds new light on the role of insiders in influencing our governments spending. "

This study is the first to look at the analytics of and experience with financial reform, in examples drawn mostly from the developing world.