​In light of the handover from the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi to Christine Lagarde in November 2019, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the events which unfolded since the euro area sovereign debt crisis in 2010 up until today. The book focuses on the far-reaching implications of the last decade, shedding light on a wide spectrum of political, economic and financial aspects of the European poly-crises and how monetary policy reacted to these challenges. The book places particular emphasis on the tensions that the supranational central bank was subject to during this period, and on their outcomes in terms of the policies, their legitimacy, and their public reception. As such, this book will be relevant not only to understand the political implications of the past crisis but also, and foremost, in understanding "what is next".

Government bailouts; negative interest rates and markets that do not behave as economic models tell us they should; new populist and nationalist movements that target central banks and central bankers as a source of popular malaise; new regional organizations and geopolitical alignments laying claim to authority over the global economy; households, consumers, and workers facing increasingly intolerable levels of inequality: These dramatic conditions seem to cry out for new ways of understanding the purposes, roles, and challenges of central banks and financial governance more generally. Financial Citizenship reveals that the conflicts about who gets to decide how central banks do all these things, and about whether central banks are acting in everyone’s interest when they do them, are in large part the product of a culture clash between experts and the various global publics that have a stake in what central banks do. Experts—central bankers, regulators, market insiders, and their academic supporters—are a special community, a cultural group apart from many of the communities that make up the public at large. When the gulf between the culture of those who govern and the cultures of the governed becomes unmanageable, the result is a legitimacy crisis. This book is a call to action for all of us—experts and publics alike—to address this legitimacy crisis head on, for our economies and our democracies.

Central banks have become the go-to institution of modern economies. In the wake of the 2007 financial crisis, they injected trillions of dollars of liquidity – through a process known as quantitative easing – first to prevent financial meltdown and later to stimulate the economy. The untold story behind these measures, and behind the changing roles of central banks generally, is that they have come at a considerable cost. Central banks argue we had no choice. This book offers a powerfully original examination of why this claim is false. Using examples from Europe and the US, the authors present and analyse three specific concerns about the way central banks in developed economies operate today. Firstly, they show how unconventional monetary policies have created significant unintended negative consequences in terms of inequalities in income and wealth. They go on to argue that central banks may have become independent of governments, but have instead become worryingly dependent on financial markets. They then proceed to analyse how central bankers, despite being the undisputed experts on monetary policy, can still err and suffer from multiple forms of bias. This book is a sobering and urgent wake-up call for policy-makers and anyone interested in how our monetary and financial system really works.

This is a book about a contemporary transformation in democratic politics: the rise of a new political field, techno-populism.

Analyzes the roots of Europe's economic decline, examining institutions of the European Union and exploring possibilities for reform.

This paper provides a brief historical journey of central banking in Latin America to shed light on the debate about monetary policy in the post-global financial crisis period. The paper distinguishes three periods in Latin America’s central bank history: the early years, when central banks endorsed the gold standard and coped with the collapse of this monetary system; a second period, in which central banks turned into development banks under the aegis of governments at the expense of increasing inflation; and the “golden years,” when central banks succeeded in preserving price stability in an environment of political independence. The paper concludes by cautioning against overburdening central banks in Latin America with multiple mandates as this could end up undermining their hard-won monetary policy credibility.

In this searing exposéformer Wall Street insider Nomi Prins shows how the 2007-2008 financial crisis turbo-boosted the influence of central bankers and triggered a massive shift in the world order. Central banks and international institutions like the IMF have overstepped their traditional mandates by directing the flow of epic sums of fabricated money without any checks or balances. Meanwhile, the open door between private and central banking has ensured endless opportunities for market manipulation and asset bubbles -- with government support. Through on-the-ground reporting, Prins reveals how five regions and their central banks reshaped economics and geopolitics. She discloses how Mexico navigated its relationship with the US while striving for independence and how Brazil led the BRICS countries to challenge the US dollar's hegemony. She explains how China's retaliation against the Fed's supremacy is aiding its ongoing ascent as a global superpower and how Japan is negotiating the power shift from the West to the East. And she illustrates how the European response to the financial crisis fueled instability that manifests itself in everything from rising populism to the shocking Brexit vote. Packed with tantalizing details about the elite players orchestrating the world economy -- from Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi to Ben Bernanke and Christine Lagarde -- Collusion takes the reader inside the most discreet conversations at exclusive retreats like Jackson Hole and Davos. A work of meticulous reporting and bracing analysis, Collusion will change the way we understand the new world of international finance.