Banking on Democracy

Banking on Democracy
Author: Javier Santiso
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Capital market
ISBN: 9780262019002

Download Banking on Democracy Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

A data-driven investigation of the interaction between politics and finance in emerging markets, focusing on Latin America. Politics matter for financial markets and financial markets matter for politics, and nowhere is this relationship more apparent than in emerging markets. In Banking on Democracy, Javier Santiso investigates the links between politics and finance in countries that have recently experienced both economic and democratic transitions. He focuses on elections, investigating whether there is a "democratic premium"--whether financial markets and investors tend to react positively to elections in emerging markets. Santiso devotes special attention to Latin America, where over the last three decades many countries became democracies, with regular elections, just as they also became open economies dependent on foreign capital and dominated bond markets. Santiso's analysis draws on a unique set of primary databases (developed during his years at the OECD Development Centre) covering an entire decade: more than 5,000 bank and fund manager portfolio recommendations on emerging markets. Santiso examines the trajectory of Brazil, for example, through its presidential elections of 2002, 2006, and 2010 and finds a decoupling of financial and political cycles that occurred also in many other emerging economies. He charts this evolution through the behavior of brokers, analysts, fund managers, and bankers. Ironically, Santiso points out, while some emerging markets have decoupled politics and finance, in the wake of the 2008-2012 financial crisis many developed economies (Europe and the United States) have experienced a recoupling between finance and politics.

How the Other Half Banks

How the Other Half Banks
Author: Mehrsa Baradaran
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674495446

Download How the Other Half Banks Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The United States has two separate banking systems today—one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities—all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s and continues decades later. “Baradaran argues persuasively that the banking industry, fattened on public subsidies (including too-big-to-fail bailouts), owes low-income families a better deal...How the Other Half Banks is well researched and clearly written...The bankers who fully understand the system are heavily invested in it. Books like this are written for the rest of us.” —Nancy Folbre, New York Times Book Review “How the Other Half Banks tells an important story, one in which we have allowed the profit motives of banks to trump the public interest.” —Lisa J. Servon, American Prospect

Money, Power, and the People

Money, Power, and the People
Author: Christopher W. Shaw
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2019-09-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 022663647X

Download Money, Power, and the People Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

An “engaging and well-researched study [of] ordinary people who joined together to challenge financial institutions” (Choice). Banks and bankers are hardly the most beloved institutions and people in this country. With its corruptive influence on politics and stranglehold on the American economy, Wall Street is held in high regard by few outside the financial sector. But the pitchforks raised against this behemoth are largely rhetorical: We rarely see riots in the streets or public demands for an equitable and democratic banking system that result in serious national changes. Yet the situation was vastly different a century ago, as Christopher W. Shaw shows. This book upends the conventional thinking that financial policy in the early twentieth century was set primarily by the needs and demands of bankers. Shaw shows that banking and politics were directly shaped by the literal and symbolic investments of the grassroots. This engagement remade financial institutions and the national economy, through populist pressure and the establishment of federal regulatory programs and agencies like the Farm Credit System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Shaw reveals the surprising groundswell behind seemingly arcane legislation, as well as the power of the people to demand serious political repercussions for the banks that caused the Great Depression. One result of this sustained interest and pressure was legislation and regulation that brought on a long period of relative financial stability, with a reduced frequency of economic booms and busts. Ironically, this stability led to the decline of the very banking politics that brought it about. Giving voice to a broad swath of American figures, including workers, farmers, politicians, and bankers alike, Money, Power, and the People recasts our understanding of what might be possible in balancing the needs of the people with those of their financial institutions.

The Strength of Democracy

The Strength of Democracy
Author: Edwin Anderson Alderman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 162
Release: 1928
Genre: Democracy
ISBN:

Download The Strength of Democracy Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Money, Power, and the People

Money, Power, and the People
Author: Christopher W. Shaw
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2019-09-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 022663633X

Download Money, Power, and the People Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Banks and bankers are hardly the most beloved institutions and people in this country. With its corruptive influence on politics and stranglehold on the American economy, Wall Street is held in high regard by few outside the financial sector. But the pitchforks raised against this behemoth are largely rhetorical: we rarely see riots in the streets or public demands for an equitable and democratic banking system that result in serious national changes. Yet the situation was vastly different a century ago, as Christopher W. Shaw shows. This book upends the conventional thinking that financial policy in the early twentieth century was set primarily by the needs and demands of bankers. Shaw shows that banking and politics were directly shaped by the literal and symbolic investments of the grassroots. This engagement remade financial institutions and the national economy, through populist pressure and the establishment of federal regulatory programs and agencies like the Farm Credit System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Shaw reveals the surprising groundswell behind seemingly arcane legislation, as well as the power of the people to demand serious political repercussions for the banks that caused the Great Depression. One result of this sustained interest and pressure was legislation and regulation that brought on a long period of relative financial stability, with a reduced frequency of economic booms and busts. Ironically, this stability led to the decline of the very banking politics that brought it about. Giving voice to a broad swath of American figures, including workers, farmers, politicians, and bankers alike, Money, Power, and the People recasts our understanding of what might be possible in balancing the needs of the people with those of their financial institutions.

Banking On Democracy

Banking On Democracy
Author: Mehrsa Baradaran
Publisher:
Total Pages: 47
Release: 2020
Genre:
ISBN:

Download Banking On Democracy Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The financial system is unequal and exclusionary even as it is supported, funded, and subsidized by public institutions. This is not just a flaw in the financial sector; it is a foundational problem for democracy. Across the financial industry, entrepreneurs, regulators, media, and scholars promote the goal of “financial inclusion” or “access to credit.” Facebook's Libra, Bitcoin, and fintech providers like Square, PayPal, Venmo and thousands of other new products or startup companies are launched with the stated aim of increasing financial inclusion. These private companies are joined by the Congress, non-profits, and financial regulators with programs and laws promoting financial inclusion. In fact, financial inclusion and access to credit are among the increasingly rare issues that unite the political left and right. Yet despite consensus and years of effort, many individuals and communities continue to be excluded from the mainstream financial system, which forces them to resort to high cost payday lenders, check cashers or other fee-based financial transaction products. The financially disenfranchised pay the most for services that the wealthy and the middle class receive at a subsidized rate. This article proposes a new model of financial inclusion, which situates issues of access and inclusion as central to the legal design of the financial system. This article argues that these remedies have failed because the current model of financial inclusion is rooted in a mistaken and incomplete theory of the financial market. Inclusion and “access to credit” are viewed as ancillary product, gap-filling, or a subsidized add-on to credit markets for those who are left out. In contrast, “normal” and “mainstream” credit markets are conceived of simply, as “markets,” governed by market rules and market dynamics. This article argues that they are both part of the same financial market, which is itself a product of public policy. Instead of financial inclusion, this article proposes to reframe the problem as a matter of financial redesign. The design of credit markets is an a-priori choice embedded in law and policy that determines the contours and scope of the credit markets, including who is included. Reconceptualizing financial inclusion must thus proceed through democratic means because inclusion and access are a byproduct of institutional design rather than private market decision making.

Democracy and Financial Order: Legal Perspectives

Democracy and Financial Order: Legal Perspectives
Author: Matthias Goldmann
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2019-06-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9783662585603

Download Democracy and Financial Order: Legal Perspectives Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This book discusses the relationship between democracy and the financial order from various legal perspectives. Each of the nine contributions adopts a unique perspective on the legal and political challenges brought to the fore by the Global Financial Crisis. This crisis and the ensuing sovereign debt crisis in Europe are only the latest in a long series of financial crises around the globe in recent decades. By their very existence, but also as a result of the political turmoil they have created, these financial crises testify to the well-known tensions between democracy and a market-based economic and financial order. However, what is missing in this debate is an analysis of the role of law for reconciling democracy with a market-based financial order. To fill this lacuna, the book focuses on the controversy surrounding the concept of law, thereby adding another variable to the debate on the relation between democracy and capitalism. Each chapter addresses the concept of law from a particular theoretical angle, be it a full-grown legal theory or an approach in political economy that has a particular view of the law.

Oh the World Owes Us a Living

Oh the World Owes Us a Living
Author: Carlton W. Laird
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2009
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1604942673

Download Oh the World Owes Us a Living Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Examines the causes of the current economic situation in the United States, suggests what citizens can do to correct long-standing abuses to our economic and political systems, and provides tools needed for the public to take back their government through voter initiative.

Unelected Power

Unelected Power
Author: Paul Tucker
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 662
Release: 2019-09-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691196303

Download Unelected Power Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Tucker presents guiding principles for ensuring that central bankers and other unelected policymakers remain stewards of the common good.