Inflation and society
/ Graham Hutton. – London : Routledge, 2016.
A 332.41 HUT INF
Originally published in 1960, this book examines how inflation as a policy has come about in modern democracies, how ti works, how to avoid it and at what cost. In non-technical terms it explains what inflation does, both to society and its individual elements, to weaken and hamper democracy. Including examples from the UK, Germany, France, Scandinavia, the USA and the former Soviet Union this volume examines inflation at work in widely differing communities since Roman Times to the late twentieth century.
The psychology of investing / John R. Nofsinger
. - 6th ed. - New York : Routledge, 2018.
A 332.6019 NOF PSY
While traditional finance focuses on the tools used to optimize return and minimize risk, this book explains how psychology can affect our decisions more than financial theory. Covering the ways investors actually behave, this is the first book of its kind to delve into the ways biases influence investment behavior, and how overcoming these biases can increase financial success.
Inflation : a theoretical survey and synthesis
/ John Hudson. – London : Routledge, 2016.
A 332.41 HUD INF
Originally published in 1982, this book begins with a wide-ranging and critical review of both first and second generation theories of inflation (and the related problem of unemployment), including the classical approach to macroeconomics. The author systematically integrates search, implicit contract, expectations and wage-bargaining theeoriees to outline a new and original synthesis. This synthesis and switching regimes model is then rigorously examined to see how well it can explain inflation the US and the UK.
Money : what it is, how it's created, who gets it, and why it matters / Sergio M. Focardi
. - London : Routledge, 2018.
A 332.4 FOC MON
By enabling the storage and transfer of purchasing power, money facilitates economic transactions and coordinates economic activity. But what is money? How is it generated? Distributed? How does money acquire value and that value change? How does money impact the economy, society?
This book explores money as a system of "tokens" that represent the purchasing power of individual agents. It looks at how money developed from debt/credit relationships, barter and coins into a system of gold-backed currencies and bank credit and on to the present system of fiat money, bank credit, near-money and, more recently, digital currencies. The author successively examines how the money circuit has changed over the last 50 years, a period of stagnant wages, increased household borrowing and growing economic complexity, and argues for a new theory of economies as complex systems, coordinated by a banking and financial system.
Money: What It Is, How It’s Created, Who Gets It and Why It Matters will be of interest to students of economics and finance theory and anyone wanting a more complete understanding of monetary theory, economics, money and banking.
The story of silver : how the white metal shaped America and the modern world
/ William L. Silber. – Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2019.
A 332.4230973 SIL STO
This is the story of silver’s transformation from soft money during the nineteenth century to hard asset today, and how manipulations of the white metal by American president Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s and by the richest man in the world, Texas oil baron Nelson Bunker Hunt, during the 1970s altered the course of American and world history. FDR pumped up the price of silver to help jump start the U.S. economy during the Great Depression, but this move weakened China, which was then on the silver standard, and facilitated Japan’s rise to power before World War II. Bunker Hunt went on a silver-buying spree during the 1970s to protect himself against inflation and triggered a financial crisis that left him bankrupt.
Silver has been the preferred shelter against government defaults, political instability, and inflation for most people in the world because it is cheaper than gold. The white metal has been the place to hide when conventional investments sour, but it has also seduced sophisticated investors throughout the ages like a siren. This book explains how powerful figures, up to and including Warren Buffett, have come under silver’s thrall, and how its history guides economic and political decisions in the twenty-first century.
When things don't fall apart : global financial governance and developmental finance in an age of productive incoherence / Ilene Grabel
. - Cambridge : MIT Press, 2017.
A 332.042 GRA WHE
In When Things Don't Fall Apart, Ilene Grabel challenges the dominant view that the global financial crisis had little effect on global financial governance and developmental finance. Most observers discount all but grand, systemic ruptures in institutions and policy. Grabel argues instead that the global crisis induced inconsistent and ad hoc discontinuities in global financial governance and developmental finance that are now having profound effects on emerging market and developing economies. Grabel's chief normative claim is that the resulting incoherence in global financial governance is productive rather than debilitating. In the age of productive incoherence, a more complex, dense, fragmented, and pluripolar form of global financial governance is expanding possibilities for policy and institutional experimentation, policy space for economic and human development, financial stability and resilience, and financial inclusion. Grabel draws on key theoretical commitments of Albert Hirschman to cement the case for the productivity of incoherence. Inspired by Hirschman, Grabel demonstrates that meaningful change often emerges from disconnected, erratic, experimental, and inconsistent adjustments in institutions and policies as actors pragmatically manage in an evolving world.
Grabel substantiates her claims with empirically rich case studies that explore the effects of recent crises on networks of financial governance (such as the G-20); transformations within the IMF; institutional innovations in liquidity support and project finance from the national to the transregional levels; and the “rebranding” of capital controls. Grabel concludes with a careful examination of the opportunities and risks associated with the evolutionary transformations underway.27
Why not default? : the political economy of sovereign debt / Jerome Roos
. - Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2019.
A 336.3409 ROO WHY
The European debt crisis has rekindled long-standing debates about the power of finance and the fraught relationship between capitalism and democracy in a globalized world. Why Not Default? unravels a striking puzzle at the heart of these debates—why, despite frequent crises and the immense costs of repayment, do so many heavily indebted countries continue to service their international debts?
In this compelling and incisive book, Jerome Roos provides a sweeping investigation of the political economy of sovereign debt and international crisis management. He takes readers from the rise of public borrowing in the Italian city-states to the gunboat diplomacy of the imperialist era and the wave of sovereign defaults during the Great Depression. He vividly describes the debt crises of developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s and sheds new light on the recent turmoil inside the Eurozone—including the dramatic capitulation of Greece’s short-lived anti-austerity government to its European creditors in 2015.
Drawing on in-depth case studies of contemporary debt crises in Mexico, Argentina, and Greece, Why Not Default? paints a disconcerting picture of the ascendancy of global finance. This important book shows how the profound transformation of the capitalist world economy over the past four decades has endowed private and official creditors with unprecedented structural power over heavily indebted borrowers, enabling them to impose painful austerity measures and enforce uninterrupted debt service during times of crisis—with devastating social consequences and far-reaching implications for democracy.
