This book describes the remarkable path which led to the Swiss Franc becoming the strong international currency that it is today. Ernst Baltensperger and Peter Kugler use Swiss monetary history to provide valuable insights into a number of issues concerning the organization and development of monetary institutions and currency that shaped the structure of financial markets and affected the economic course of a country in important ways. They investigate a number of topics, including the functioning of a world without a central bank, the role of competition and monopoly in money and banking, the functioning of monetary unions, monetary policy of small open economies under fixed and flexible exchange rates, the stability of money demand and supply under different monetary regimes, and the monetary and macroeconomic effects of Swiss Banking and Finance. Swiss Monetary History since the Early 19th Century illustrates the value of monetary history for understanding financial markets and macroeconomics today.

Banking historiography often does not sufficiently take into account bankers’ deliberations of their decision making, but rather limits investigation to considerations of profit maximisation. This book shows that the decision-making processes of nineteenth-century bankers contemplating high-risk financial markets like Greece are just as complex as present-day investment decisions. The book, now published in English after a first German edition, offers in-depth studies of decision making in concrete historical situations, considering political and economic circumstances and also the individual background of the actors concerned, including a reflection on the influence of cultural movements such as Philhellenism. Employing methodological inspirations from the field of behavioural finance, the book analyses a broad range of published and unpublished English, French, Greek, German and Swiss sources on European investment in Greece between 1821 and the Balkan wars. Additionally, rich insights into Greek economic history, the economic integration of the country into Europe and long-lasting European stereotypes of Southern Europe and Greece are provided; this furthers understanding of the historical background of the Greek financial crisis after 2009. In combining the perspectives of financial, economic, political and cultural history, this book is primarily significant for students of various fields of historiography. Due to its strong awareness of methodological questions, it is also of great interest to academic historians. In addition, the strong public interest in the Greek financial crisis after 2009 and its consequences for Europe will, thirdly, attract the interest of a broader public.

This book traces the roots of global financial integration in the first “modern” era of globalisation from 1880 to 1913 and can serve as a valuable tool to current-day policy dilemmas by using historical data to see which policies in the past led to enhanced international financing for development.

Despite its position at the heart of Europe and its quintessentially European nature, Switzerland's history is often overlooked within the English-speaking world. This comprehensive and engaging history of Switzerland traces the historical and cultural development of this fascinating but neglected European country from the end of the Dark Ages up to the present. The authors focus on the initial Confederacy of the Middle Ages; the religious divisions which threatened it after 1500 and its surprising survival amongst Europe's monarchies; the turmoil following the French Revolution and conquest, which continued until the Federal Constitution of 1848; the testing of the Swiss nation through the late nineteenth century and then two World Wars and the Depression of the 1930s; and the unparalleled economic and social growth and political success of the post-war era. The book concludes with a discussion of the contemporary challenges, often shared with neighbours, that shape the country today.

The story broke in 2006: Since 9/11, US intelligence services have had access to practically any international money transfer data by infiltrating the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) network. Banks worldwide transfer money orders and personal customer data through this network. While the surveillance was all-embracing in 2001, it was gradually limited over the course of the last few years. Revealed by the New York Times, the SWIFT affair has had global as well as national implications. While this dissertation first examines the international dimension of the SWIFT surveillance, the analysis mainly focuses on the national repercussions for Switzerland. Arditi Prize 2010 in International Affairs.

Why has Switzerland - a tiny, land-locked country with few natural advantages - become so successful for so long at so many things? In banking, pharmaceuticals, machinery, even textiles, Swiss companies rank alongside the biggest and most powerful global competitors. How did they get there? How do they continue to refresh themselves? Does the Swiss 'Sonderfall' (special case) provide lessons others can learn and benefit from? Can the Swiss continue to perform in a hyper-competitive global economy? Swiss Made offers answers to these and many other questions about the country as it describes the origins, structures and characteristics of the most important Swiss companies. The authors suggest success is due to a large degree to sound entrepreneurial thinking and an openness to new ideas. And they venture a surprising forecast on the country's ability to keep pace in an age of globalisation.

Reading Medieval Sources is an exciting new series which leads scholars and students into some of the most challenging and rewarding sources from the European Middle Ages, and introduces the most important approaches to understanding them. Written by an international team of twelve leading scholars, this volume Money and Coinage in the Middle Ages presents a set of fresh and insightful perspectives that demonstrate the rich potential of this source material to all scholars of medieval history and culture. It includes coverage of major developments in monetary history, set into their economic and political context, as well as innovative and interdisciplinary perspectives that address money and coinage in relation to archaeology, anthropology and medieval literature. Contributors are Nanouschka Myrberg Burström, Elizabeth Edwards, Gaspar Feliu, Anna Gannon, Richard Kelleher, Bill Maurer, Nick Mayhew, Rory Naismith, Philipp Robinson Rössner, Alessia Rovelli, Lucia Travaini, and Andrew Woods.