Listen to a short interview with Rawi AbdelalHost: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane The rise of global financial markets in the last decades of the twentieth century was premised on one fundamental idea: that capital ought to flow across country borders with minimal restriction and regulation. Freedom for capital movements became the new orthodoxy. In an intellectual, legal, and political history of financial globalization, Rawi Abdelal shows that this was not always the case. Transactions routinely executed by bankers, managers, and investors during the 1990s--trading foreign stocks and bonds, borrowing in foreign currencies--had been illegal in many countries only decades, and sometimes just a year or two, earlier. How and why did the world shift from an orthodoxy of free capital movements in 1914 to an orthodoxy of capital controls in 1944 and then back again by 1994? How have such standards of appropriate behavior been codified and transmitted internationally? Contrary to conventional accounts, Abdelal argues that neither the U.S. Treasury nor Wall Street bankers have preferred or promoted multilateral, liberal rules for global finance. Instead, European policy makers conceived and promoted the liberal rules that compose the international financial architecture. Whereas U.S. policy makers have tended to embrace unilateral, ad hoc globalization, French and European policy makers have promoted a rule-based, "managed" globalization. This contest over the character of globalization continues today.

Banking Reform in India and China seeks to explore the ways in which banking reform is conditioned by a variety of institutional mechanisms. To uncover these dynamics, Saez draws primarily from analytical tools developed in modern game theory and institutional economics. He provides a multidimensional analysis that covers microeconomic, macroeconomic and institutional aspects of these two countries banking systems. It ties together three themes of corporate governance, financial deregulation and central bank independence to banking reform. These unique approaches make this an important contribution to the literature on comparative banking reform in transitional economies.

A financial system is only as strong as the governing practices and institutions of its participants. The challenge to build efficient and accountable financial institutions that promote confidence is a problem that private financial sector executives and policymakers confront together. In this context, Financial Sector Governance takes a clinical approach to addressing the challenges in emerging and developed markets in each industry: capital markets, private banks, state-owned banks, asset management companies, public pension funds, and mutual funds. It also explores the linkages between public and private sector governance, and the policy implications for strengthening both sides. Financial Sector Governance emerges from the fourth annual Financial Markets and Development conference, organized by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Brookings Institution, during which participants from the public and private financial sectors of emerging and developed markets contribute to an expanding dialogue addressing key policy concerns.

A comprehensive look at the enormous growth and evolution of distressed debt, corporate bankruptcy, and credit risk default This Third Edition of the most authoritative finance book on the topic updates and expands its discussion of corporate distress and bankruptcy, as well as the related markets dealing with high-yield and distressed debt, and offers state-of-the-art analysis and research on the costs of bankruptcy, credit default prediction, the post-emergence period performance of bankrupt firms, and more.

Academic medical centers provide cutting edge acute care, train tomorrow's physicians, and carry out research that will expand the range of treatable and curable illnesses. But these centers themselves may need urgent care—experts generally agree that many are suffering acute—even life-threatening—financial distress. Many academic medical centers are suffering for several reasons: in-patient admissions are down, as many procedures that once required a hospital stay are now performed on an out-patient basis or in a physician's office ; managed care plans have negotiated discounted fees that cut hospital operating margins; the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 curtailed Medicare reimbursements, lowered margins and pushed some into the red; the revolution in information technology is imposing large new capital costs; and the character of medical education is receiving its most thorough review in decades. While there is a general consensus that medical centers are under pressure, experts disagree about the depth and pervasiveness of the current financial distress. Are they whining about financial pressures other, less-favored sectors find routine; or is the high quality American teaching hospital becoming an endangered species—that could face extinction if nothing is done. Because academic medical centers perform such important jobs, it is critical to determine the true nature and depth of their current financial problems—and then fashion analytically sound and politically sustainable solutions. This book brings together chief executive officers of major medical centers, university presidents, senior members of Congressional and executive office staffs, and leading analysts. These experts address the key issues and prescribe remedies both regulatory and legislative to ensure that the teaching hospital remains a picture of financial health. Contributors include Nancy Kane (Harvard School of Public Health), Jamie Reuter (Institute for Health Care Research P