This book examines the effect of banking on the real economy and society, focusing on banking supervision as the decisive factor in steering banking activities and determining the social outcome of the game of finance. Banking is like a cardiovascular system for our society. If it functions correctly, it allows the economy to operate smoothly. On the other hand, if it malfunctions it becomes a doomsday device. This creates an asymmetry of risks – the asymmetry between the potential dire consequences and the modest rewards of accepting those risks. Banking was one of the critical technological factors enabling the transition from the middle ages and the creation of modern society. However, while today it contributes little to economic growth, its malfunction has a profound and lasting adverse impact. The book explains why, how and what. Why is it important to keep tight supervision of the banks? How can banking supervision improve stability, not only of the financial system but also of the whole human society? What went wrong with the regulation in the past?

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.International banking standards are intended for the regulation of large, complex, risk-taking international banks with trillions of dollars in assets and operations across the globe. Yet they are being implemented in countries with nascent financial markets and small banks that have yet to ventureinto international markets. Why is this? This book develops a new framework to explain regulatory interdependence between countries in the core and the periphery of the global financial system. Drawing on in-depth analysis of eleven countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, it shows howfinancial globalisation generates strong reputational and competitive incentives for developing countries to converge on international standards. It explains how specific cross-border relations between regulators, politicians, and banks within developing countries, and international actors includinginvestors, peer regulators, and international financial institutions, generate regulatory interdependence. It explains why some configurations of domestic politics and forms of integration into global finance generate convergence with international standards, while other configurations lead todivergence. This book contributes to our understanding of the ways in which governments and firms in the core of global finance powerfully shape regulatory decisions in the periphery, and the ways that governments and firms from peripheral developing countries manoeuvre within the constraints andopportunities created by financial globalisation.

Examines the law and policy of financial regulation using a combination of conceptual analysis and strong empirical research.

The establishment of Banking Union represents a major development in European economic governance and European integration history more generally. Banking Union is also significant because not all European Union (EU) member states have joined, which has increased the trend towards differentiated integration in the EU, posing a major challenge to the EU as a whole and to the opt-out countries. This book is informed by two main empirical questions. Why was Banking Union - presented by proponents as a crucial move to 'complete' Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) - proposed only in 2012, over twenty years after the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty? Why has a certain design for Banking Union been agreed and some elements of this design prioritized over others? A two-step explanation is articulated in this study. First, it explains why euro area member state governments moved to consider Banking Union by building on the concept of the 'financial trilemma', and examining the implications of the single currency for euro area member state banking systems. Second, it explains the design of Banking Union by examining the preferences of member state governments on the core components of Banking Union and developing a comparative political economy analysis focused on the configuration of national banking systems and varying national concern for the moral hazard facing banks and sovereigns created by euro level support mechanisms.

Financial crises are traditionally analyzed as purely economic phenomena. The political economy of financial booms and busts remains both under-emphasized and limited to isolated episodes. This paper examines the political economy of financial policy during ten of the most infamous financial booms and busts since the 18th century, and presents consistent evidence of pro-cyclical regulatory policies by governments. Financial booms, and risk-taking during these episodes, were often amplified by political regulatory stimuli, credit subsidies, and an increasing light-touch approach to financial supervision. The regulatory backlash that ensues from financial crises can only be understood in the context of the deep political ramifications of these crises. Post-crisis regulations do not always survive the following boom. The interplay between politics and financial policy over these cycles deserves further attention. History suggests that politics can be the undoing of macro-prudential regulations.

Building on theories of finance and distribution, and the political economy of finance, this book explains the influence of financial cooperatives on wealth and income distribution, and institutional factors that determine the development of financial cooperatives. The book discusses the dynamics of income and wealth distribution with and without financial cooperatives, and defines the economic objective for financial cooperatives. Through explaining the influence of political institutions and regulations on the development of financial cooperatives, this book examines why financial cooperatives grew in some emerging economies and not in other similar ones. The book is of interest to scholars interested in financial economics, political economy of finance, alternative banking and development finance, and banking regulation. The book also gives valuable output to central bankers and financial and monetary policy makers in underdeveloped economies. In addition, it will be of particular interest to practitioners in international development institutions, especially those engaged in development finance and rural finance.

Begins a series analyzing the role of government in the economy from the perspective of the Austrian school of economics. Six essays trace the precarious state of US banking to rent-seeking, ideology, and the historical accretion of government regulations. They are revised versions of papers presented at an April 1991 conference at New York University. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR