The End of Finance (eBook)

Massimo Amato, Luca Fantacci (Autoren)

eBook Download: PDF

2013 | 1. Auflage
300 Seiten
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-7456-8363-8 (ISBN)

Infos

This new book by two distinguished Italian economists is a highly
original contribution to our understanding of the origins and
aftermath of the financial crisis. The authors show that the recent
financial crisis cannot be understood simply as a malfunctioning in
the subprime mortgage market: rather, it is rooted in a much more
fundamental transformation, taking place over an extended time
period, in the very nature of finance.

The 'end' or purpose of finance is to be found in the
social institutions by which the making and acceptance of promises
of payment are made possible - that is, the creation and
cancellation of debt contracts within a specified time frame. Amato
and Fantacci argue that developments in the modern financial system
by which debts are securitized has endangered this fundamental
credit/debt structure. The illusion has been created that debts are
universally liquid in the sense that they need not be redeemed but
can be continually sold on in increasingly extensive global
markets. What appears to have reduced the riskiness of default for
individual agents has in fact increased the fragility of the system
as a whole.

The authors trace the origins of this profound transformation
backwards in time, not just to the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s
and 90s but to the birth of capitalist finance in the mercantile
networks of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This long
historical perspective and deep analysis of the nature of finance
enables the authors to tackle the challenges we face today in a
fresh way - not simply by tinkering with existing mechanisms, but
rather by asking the more profound question of how institutions
might be devised in which finance could fulfil its essential
functions.

Autor

MASSIMO AMATO is a Researcher in Economic History at the Università Bocconi in Milan. LUCA FANTACCI is Assistant Professor at the Università Bocconi in Milan.

Inhalt

Introduction

Part One: Phenomenology

I. Do we know what the financial markets are?

II. At the root of the possibility of crisis: liquidity and risk

III. What is credit?

IV. What is money?

V. Finance starting from the end

VI. Capitalism and debt: a matter of life and death

Part Two: History

I. From credit risk to liquidity risk (2008)

II. The globalization of capital (1973)

III. 'Fiat dollar'. And the world saw that it was good
(1971)

IV. The Eurodollar chimera (1958)

V. The European Payments Union (1950)

VI. Bretton Woods: the plan that might have made it (1944)

VII. Bretton Woods: the system that found implementation
(1944)

VIII. The crisis paradigm (1929)

IX. Orchestra Rehearsal

X. Money before and after the gold standard (1717)

XI. The Bank of England and power currency (1694)

XII. The International Currency of the Trade Fairs (1579)

Part Three: Politics

I. Double or quits?

II. The way out of liquidity: the Gordian knot and utopia

III. Prevention or cure? The structural paradox of the anti-crisis
policies

IV. The other finance

V. The (rare) "green shoots" of a possible reform

VI. If not now, when?

Rezensionen

"This is an important book. It is clearly destined to become
one of the very best accounts of the financial crisis -

it is clear, concise and very readable. Its deep theoretical
understanding of the issues is combined with the best

short account of the historical evolution of the capitalist
financial system that I have encountered. The result is a

sophisticated and accessible analysis of how a better financial
system might be constructed."

- Geoffrey Ingham, University of Cambridge

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.10.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Finanzierung
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre ► Finanzwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: Economics • Economic Theory • Volkswirtschaftslehre • Wirtschaftstheorie
• ISBN-10: 0-7456-8363-0 / 0745683630
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8363-8 / 9780745683638