The Roots of Western Finance
The Roots of Western Finance

Author: Thomas K. Park

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2017-05-24

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1498545823

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In The Roots of Western Finance: Power, Ethics, and Social Capital in the Ancient World, Thomas K. Park and James B. Greenberg take an anthropological approach to credit. They suggest that financial activities occur in a complex milieu, in which specific parties, with particular motives, achieve their goals using a form of social, cultural, or economic agency. They examine the imbrication of finance and hidden interests in Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, classical Greece and Rome, the early Judeo-Christian traditions, and the Islamic world to illuminate the ties between social, ethical, and financial institutions. This unique breadth of research provides new perspectives on Mesopotamian ways of incentivizing production through financial arrangements, the source of Egyptian surpluses, linguistics and usury, metrological influences on finance, and the enduring importance of honor and social capital. This book not only illustrates the particular cultural logics that drove these ancient economies, it also depicts how modern society’s financial techniques, ethics, and concerns with justice are attributable to a rich multicultural history.

A Financial History of Western Europe
A Financial History of Western Europe

Author: Charles P. Kindleberger

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-06-03

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 1136805788

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first history of finance - broadly defined to include money, banking, capital markets, public and private finance, international transfers etc. - that covers Western Europe (with an occasional glance at the western hemisphere) and half a millennium. Charles Kindleberger highlights the development of financial institutions to meet emerging needs, and the similarities and contrasts in the handling of financial problems such as transferring resources from one country to another, stimulating investment, or financing war and cleaning up the resulting monetary mess. The first half of the book covers money, banking and finance from 1450 to 1913; the second deals in considerably finer detail with the twentieth century. This major work casts current issues in historical perspective and throws light on the fascinating, and far from orderly, evolution of financial institutions and the management of financial problems. Comprehensive, critical and cosmopolitan, this book is both an outstanding work of reference and essential reading for all those involved in the study and practice of finance, be they economic historians, financial experts, scholarly bankers or students of money and banking. This groundbreaking work was first published in 1984.

A History of Credit and Power in the Western World
A History of Credit and Power in the Western World

Author: Scott B. MacDonald

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 0765800853

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume examines the evolution of credit in the western world and its relationship to power. Spanning several centuries of human endeavour, it focuses on western Europe and the United States and also considers how the western system became the global credit system.

Fragile by Design
Fragile by Design

Author: Charles W. Calomiris

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-08-04

Total Pages: 584

ISBN-13: 0691168350

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Why stable banking systems are so rare Why are banking systems unstable in so many countries—but not in others? The United States has had twelve systemic banking crises since 1840, while Canada has had none. The banking systems of Mexico and Brazil have not only been crisis prone but have provided miniscule amounts of credit to business enterprises and households. Analyzing the political and banking history of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil through several centuries, Fragile by Design demonstrates that chronic banking crises and scarce credit are not accidents. Calomiris and Haber combine political history and economics to examine how coalitions of politicians, bankers, and other interest groups form, why they endure, and how they generate policies that determine who gets to be a banker, who has access to credit, and who pays for bank bailouts and rescues. Fragile by Design is a revealing exploration of the ways that politics inevitably intrudes into bank regulation.

The Big Problem of Small Change
The Big Problem of Small Change

Author: Thomas J. Sargent

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-04-24

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 1400851629

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Big Problem of Small Change offers the first credible and analytically sound explanation of how a problem that dogged monetary authorities for hundreds of years was finally solved. Two leading economists, Thomas Sargent and François Velde, examine the evolution of Western European economies through the lens of one of the classic problems of monetary history--the recurring scarcity and depreciation of small change. Through penetrating and clearly worded analysis, they tell the story of how monetary technologies, doctrines, and practices evolved from 1300 to 1850; of how the "standard formula" was devised to address an age-old dilemma without causing inflation. One big problem had long plagued commodity money (that is, money literally worth its weight in gold): governments were hard-pressed to provide a steady supply of small change because of its high costs of production. The ensuing shortages hampered trade and, paradoxically, resulted in inflation and depreciation of small change. After centuries of technological progress that limited counterfeiting, in the nineteenth century governments replaced the small change in use until then with fiat money (money not literally equal to the value claimed for it)--ensuring a secure flow of small change. But this was not all. By solving this problem, suggest Sargent and Velde, modern European states laid the intellectual and practical basis for the diverse forms of money that make the world go round today. This keenly argued, richly imaginative, and attractively illustrated study presents a comprehensive history and theory of small change. The authors skillfully convey the intuition that underlies their rigorous analysis. All those intrigued by monetary history will recognize this book for the standard that it is.

The Origins and Development of Financial Markets and Institutions
The Origins and Development of Financial Markets and Institutions

Author: Jeremy Atack

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-03-16

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 1139477048

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Collectively, mankind has never had it so good despite periodic economic crises of which the current sub-prime crisis is merely the latest example. Much of this success is attributable to the increasing efficiency of the world's financial institutions as finance has proved to be one of the most important causal factors in economic performance. In a series of insightful essays, financial and economic historians examine how financial innovations from the seventeenth century to the present have continually challenged established institutional arrangements, forcing change and adaptation by governments, financial intermediaries, and financial markets. Where these have been successful, wealth creation and growth have followed. When they failed, growth slowed and sometimes economic decline has followed. These essays illustrate the difficulties of co-ordinating financial innovations in order to sustain their benefits for the wider economy, a theme that will be of interest to policy makers as well as economic historians.

A Financial History of Western Europe
A Financial History of Western Europe

Author: Charles P. Kindleberger

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-06-03

Total Pages: 558

ISBN-13: 113680577X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first history of finance - broadly defined to include money, banking, capital markets, public and private finance, international transfers etc. - that covers Western Europe (with an occasional glance at the western hemisphere) and half a millennium. Charles Kindleberger highlights the development of financial institutions to meet emerging needs, and the similarities and contrasts in the handling of financial problems such as transferring resources from one country to another, stimulating investment, or financing war and cleaning up the resulting monetary mess. The first half of the book covers money, banking and finance from 1450 to 1913; the second deals in considerably finer detail with the twentieth century. This major work casts current issues in historical perspective and throws light on the fascinating, and far from orderly, evolution of financial institutions and the management of financial problems. Comprehensive, critical and cosmopolitan, this book is both an outstanding work of reference and essential reading for all those involved in the study and practice of finance, be they economic historians, financial experts, scholarly bankers or students of money and banking. This groundbreaking work was first published in 1984.

Hidden Interests in Credit and Finance
Hidden Interests in Credit and Finance

Author: James B. Greenberg

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-09-20

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1498545793

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this book, James B. Greenberg and Thomas K. Park take an anthropological approach to the economic history of the past one thousand years and define credit as a potentially transformative force involving inequalities. Traveling through the Mediterranean and Europe, from the medieval period to the modern day, Greenberg and Park reorient financial history and position social capital and ethical thought at its center. They examine the multicultural origins of credit and finance, from banking to credit cards and predatory lending to the collapse of global credit markets in 2007–2008. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, history, economics, religion, and sociology.

A Culture of Growth
A Culture of Growth

Author: Joel Mokyr

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2016-11-15

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0691168881

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Why Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial Revolution During the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe. While much has been made of the details of the Industrial Revolution, what remains a mystery is why it took place at all. Why did this revolution begin in the West and not elsewhere, and why did it continue, leading to today's unprecedented prosperity? In this groundbreaking book, celebrated economic historian Joel Mokyr argues that a culture of growth specific to early modern Europe and the European Enlightenment laid the foundations for the scientific advances and pioneering inventions that would instigate explosive technological and economic development. Bringing together economics, the history of science and technology, and models of cultural evolution, Mokyr demonstrates that culture—the beliefs, values, and preferences in society that are capable of changing behavior—was a deciding factor in societal transformations. Mokyr looks at the period 1500–1700 to show that a politically fragmented Europe fostered a competitive "market for ideas" and a willingness to investigate the secrets of nature. At the same time, a transnational community of brilliant thinkers known as the “Republic of Letters” freely circulated and distributed ideas and writings. This political fragmentation and the supportive intellectual environment explain how the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe but not China, despite similar levels of technology and intellectual activity. In Europe, heterodox and creative thinkers could find sanctuary in other countries and spread their thinking across borders. In contrast, China’s version of the Enlightenment remained controlled by the ruling elite. Combining ideas from economics and cultural evolution, A Culture of Growth provides startling reasons for why the foundations of our modern economy were laid in the mere two centuries between Columbus and Newton.

The Uniqueness of Western Civilization
The Uniqueness of Western Civilization

Author: Ricardo Duchesne

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-02-07

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 9004192484

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

After challenging the multicultural effort to “provincialize” the history of Western civilization, this book argues that the roots of the West’s exceptional creativity should be traced back to the uniquely aristocratic warlike culture of Indo-European speakers.