Anastasia Nesvetailova

Libby Assassi

Duncan Wigan

This edited volume deepens our understanding of the complex processes and mechanisms of financial expansion and elucidates the effects of this expansion in the global political economy. It brings together perspectives from political economy, finance, accountancy, law and sociology to develop an appreciation of financial deregulation and its consequences. And it looks at the central question of how financial power works.

Beyond Deregulation

Global Finance in the New Century

Shadow banking – a system of credit creation outside traditional banks – lies at the very heart of the global economy. It accounts for over half of global banking assets, and represents a third of the global financial system. Although the term ‘shadow banking’ only entered public discourse in 2007, the importance and scope of this system is now widely recognised by the international policy-makers. There is, however, much less consensus on the origins of the shadow banking system, what role it plays in global political economy and the optimal approach to regulating this complex segment of finance. This volume addresses these questions. Shadow Banking is the first study to bring together the insights from financial regulators, practitioners and academics from across the social sciences. The first part traces the evolution and ongoing confusion about the meaning of ‘shadow banking’. The second section draws major lessons about shadow banking as posed by the financial crisis of 2007–09, providing comparative analyses in the US and Europe, and attempts to establish why shadow banking has emerged and matured to the level of a de facto parallel financial system. Finally, the third part goes beyond current regulatory concerns about shadow banking and explains why it is ‘here to stay’. This volume is of great importance to political economy, banking and international political economy.

Scope, Origins and Theories

Shadow Banking

Ronen Palan

Financial malpractice, we're told, is an aberration: the actions of a few bad apples deviating from the norms of a market-governed process and gaming the system. In Sabotage, political scientists Anastasia Nesvetailova and Ronen Palan blow this fiction apart, showing that sabotage is not an anomaly, but part of the business model of finance - and always has been. Abusive lending practices, misleading investors, manipulating prices, deliberately falsifying figures, cheating, obstruction and taking advantage of 'the dumbest person in the room' - they're actually the main source of profitability in finance, and the surest way to a bonus. If you want to make money in the industry, you need to find ways of sabotaging either your clients, your competitors or the government (or all three), and above all, the market itself. Talking to industry insiders, economists and high net worth customers, examining the history of finance and its workings today, the authors show us how the idea of sabotage not only makes sense of all past economic crises, but must also be at the heart of all future regulations.

Anastasia Nesvetailova

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