financial innovation

A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation

by Richard Bookstaber  · 5 Apr 2007  · 289pp  · 113,211 words

Page ii ffirs.qxd 3/1/07 3:33 PM Page iii A DEMON OF OUR OWN DESIGN ~ ~ Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation RICHARD BOOKSTABER John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ffirs.qxd 3/1/07 3:33 PM Page iv Copyright © 2007 by Richard Bookstaber. All rights reserved. Published

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.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Bookstaber, Richard M., 1950– A demon of our own design : markets, hedge funds, and the perils of financial innovation / Richard Bookstaber. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-471-22727-4 (cloth) 1. Hedge funds. 2. Risk management. I. Title. HG4530

Smart Money: How High-Stakes Financial Innovation Is Reshaping Our WorldÑFor the Better

by Andrew Palmer  · 13 Apr 2015  · 280pp  · 79,029 words

e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com. Designed by Cynthia Young Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Palmer, Andrew, 1970– Smart money : how high-stakes financial innovation is reshaping our world-for the better / Andrew Palmer. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-465-06472-4 (hardback) — ISBN 978

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institution, simple and complex.2 The second misconception concerns the benefits of financial creativity. Few areas of human activity now have a worse image than “financial innovation.” The financial crisis of 2007–2008 brought a host of arcane financial processes and products to wider attention. Paul Volcker, one former chairman of the

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Federal Reserve whose postcrisis reputation remains intact, has implied that no financial innovation of the past twenty-five years matches up to the automatic teller machine in terms of usefulness. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize–winning economist-cum

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a financial basis.”4 This book is divided into two parts. The first is designed to give the reader a broader framework for thinking about financial innovation than just the 2007–2008 crisis and its aftermath. The natural response to the idea of financial ingenuity is to say, “No, thanks.” But as

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financial breakthroughs. The invention of money, the use of derivative contracts, and the creation of stock exchanges were smart responses to fundamental, real-world problems. Financial innovation helped foster trade, smooth risks, create companies, and build infrastructure. The modern world needed finance to come into being. Without question, the industry did a

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they can say is: ‘But you could be charging more. Why don’t you?’” If the first part of the book makes you doubt that financial innovation is all bad, the second should convince you of its capacity to do good. Despite the crisis—and in some cases because of it—finance

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. PART I: LESSONS BADLY LEARNED 1. Handmaid to History Financial Sector Thinks It’s About Ready to Ruin World Again —The Onion The history of financial innovation is also the story of human advance. The early forms of finance met some very basic needs—trade, safekeeping, credit. As societies and technologies have

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outcome. Large numbers reduce the odds of an unusual average outcome. Example of a Galton Board. Source: Marcin Floryan In thinking about the course of financial innovation, mathematical insights like the law of large numbers have a large part to play. This particular idea was formalized by Jacob Bernoulli, a Swiss mathematician

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-ownership rate among US households rose from 43.6 percent in 1940 to 64 percent in 1980.23 *** THIS RAPID TOUR THROUGH the history of financial innovation has one last stop: the age of derivatives. Derivatives are financial instruments whose value is derived from the performance of another, underlying, asset. We have

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of financial breakthroughs? One is that those who think the recent global crisis meant the end of history are dead wrong. The big drivers of financial innovation—needs, theoretical insights, and technology—are still powering the industry. Indeed, as we shall see in the second part, they are providing greater momentum than

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financial distress. Finance may propel us forward, but it is also liable to cause a lot of trouble.2 This book’s contention is that financial innovation is an essential component of attempts to address the world’s big problems. How can that argument be squared with the industry’s destructive tendencies

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finance as the source of all evil, are now keen to encourage securitization rather than rely too much on the banking system. The problem with financial innovation is not that products have original sin, but that the financial system is programmed to change these products in ways that make them more dangerous

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than any other industry, finance evolves through rapid, constant experimentation. The physical constraints on the flow of new products are light. The raw materials of financial innovation are cheap: a fertile mind and a piece of paper will often suffice to dream up new ideas. Demand for fresh ideas has always been

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a study by Nicola Gennaioli of Pompeu Fabra University, Andrei Shleifer of Harvard University, and Robert Vishny of the University of Chicago, called “Neglected Risks, Financial Innovation and Financial Fragility.” It suffers the usual curses of the economic paper: a crushingly formulaic structure and an enormous amount of algebra. In its very

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soon after the 2007–2008 banking crisis, the events of May 2010 also made HFT part of the wider debate about the social value of financial innovation. In the “anti” camp are those who allege that markets are being deliberately manipulated by traders with a speed advantage. A 2012 Credit Suisse research

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are actually part of a rather more glacial process. Reaching a judgment on the costs and benefits of high-­frequency trading, or indeed of any financial innovation, cannot be made in a historical vacuum. Lamenting the flaws of modern finance makes very little sense without asking whether things were so much better

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the old days. In a 2011 paper, Josh Lerner and Peter Tufano argued that it is virtually impossible to quantify the social impact of a financial innovation because finance involves so many “externalities”—costs or benefits visited upon third parties. For example, it would be almost impossible to measure the aggregate costs

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. “I don’t know, but I know I still want them.” The themes we have touched on in this chapter explain how it is that financial innovations can sour. As markets develop, they attract less specialized investors. These investors rely less on their own analysis, more on heuristics and the analysis of

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tightly or nudging speeds up another notch. This is a stylized process, of course: not every market follows this path. But it suggests that demonizing financial innovations is the wrong lesson to draw from recent failures. Ingenuity is fine; it is the established bits of finance that cause the trouble. In fact

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established, and that a lack of innovation ought to worry people more than its presence. In the next part, we look at the shape of financial innovation today—the entrepreneurs who are now driving finance forward and some of the issues they are trying to solve. PART II: A FORCE FOR GOOD

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body called the Big Lottery Fund will make payments to investors. Young though they are, SIBs are a great response to the question of whether financial innovation can ever be useful. They are one possible answer to the squeeze on government spending in rich countries. They are a way of channeling money

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the continuum of financial returns should you go to attract more of this capital? The Peterborough SIB is typical of a first crack at a financial innovation. It asks investors to take on a lot of risk in order to test the product. If the recidivism rate improves by 7 percent, say

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, then they would start to outweigh the savings that government makes from lower crime rates. So in a pattern that is typical of early-stage financial innovation, each SIB is a slightly different variant on the last, as participants experiment with different balances between social and financial outcomes. The New York City

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the computerization of trading, enabled the rapid pricing of options and paved the way for huge growth in derivatives markets.7 At a time when financial innovation and derivatives have become dirty words, Merton has become practiced at answering the criticisms thrown their way. “When you get asked, ‘What is it like

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Tufano is a former Harvard Business School academic who is now the dean of the Said Business School in Oxford. As well as writing about financial innovation, he is also a practitioner. Tufano’s particular concern has been how to encourage the poor to increase their savings. The low-income consumer is

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19.7 percent of America’s labor force in 2002 was engaged in some form of guarding activity.1 That doesn’t scream social utility. Financial innovation has made enormous contributions to society in the past, and it is primed to do so again. Indeed, the crisis of 2007–2008 has made

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time someone says that finance is good for nothing but enriching bankers, think of them. Acknowledgments This book was born from a special report on financial innovation that was published in the Economist in 2012, as well as from my reporting for the newspaper both before and since. I would like to

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(“Paul Volcker: Think More Boldly,” Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2009). Krugman’s columns in the New York Times have frequently questioned the utility of financial innovation; see, for example, “Destructive Creativity,” January 18, 2010. 4. “The Great Career Debate: Google Versus Goldman,” October 31, 2013, http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul

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Policy in France, 1746–1793,” Journal of Economic History (March 1992). 15. For more on the role of technology in propelling financial innovation, see Stelios Michalopoulos, Luc Laeven, and Ross Levine, “Financial Innovation and Endogenous Growth” (NBER Working Paper 51356, September 2009). 16. Richard Sylla, “A Historical Primer on the Business of Credit Ratings

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Odlyzko, “Collective Hallucinations and Inefficient Markets: The British Railway Mania of the 1840s,” SSRN Electronic Journal (2010). 18. Peter Tufano, “Business Failure, Judicial Intervention and Financial Innovation: Restructuring US Railroads in the Nineteenth Century,” Business History Review (1997). 19. Robert Shiller, “The Invention of Inflation-Indexed Bonds in America” (NBER Working Paper

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10183, December 2003). For a more comprehensive history, see Franklin Allen and Douglas Gale, Financial Innovation and Risk Sharing (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994). 20. Sometimes, they are more important. As policy makers try to find a way to avoid bailing

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equity cushion is automatically plumped up. Financial engineering is one answer to a crisis partly caused by financial engineering. 21. Saumitra Jha, “Sharing the Future: Financial Innovation and Innovators in Solving the Political Economy Challenges of Development” (Stanford Graduate School of Business Research Paper 2093, 2011). 22. Alan Morrison and William Wilhelm

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India Trade and the Rise of the Amsterdam Capital Market, 1595–1612,” Journal of Economic History (2004). 4. Peter Tufano, “Financial Innovation and First-Mover Advantages,” Journal of Financial Economics (1989); Peter Tufano, “Financial Innovation,” Handbook of the Economics of Finance (2003). 5. “The Dojima Rice Market and the Origins of Futures Trading” (Harvard

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2010). 6. Minos Zombanakis, “The Life and Good Times of Libor,” Financial World (June 2012). 7. Nicola Gennaioli, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny, “Neglected Risks, Financial Innovation and Financial Fragility,” Journal of Financial Economics (2012). 8. “Financial Globalisation: Retreat or Reset?” (McKinsey Global Institute, February 2013). 9. Marcin Kasperczyk and Philipp Schnabl

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of George U. Sauter, the Vanguard Group (Securities and Exchange Commission, Market Structure Roundtable, June 2010). 24. Josh Lerner and Peter Tufano, “The Consequences of Financial Innovation: A Counterfactual Research Agenda” (NBER Working Paper 16780, February 2011). 25. The firm’s colorful story is told in a 1999 book called The Predictors

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liberalization and, 34 first securities markets in, 14 maritime trade partnerships in, 7–8 J. C. Flowers, 69, 81 Japan, banking crisis in, 75 Japan, financial innovation in, 27, 29, 39–40 Jha, Saumitra, 27 Jiménez-Martín, Sergi, 73 Job creation, young small firms and, 147–148 Joint-stock firms, 23 JPMorgan

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, 36–37 Mortgage securitization, 47 Multisystemic therapy, 96 Munnell, Alicia, 129 Naked credit-default swaps, 143 Nature Biotechnology, on drug-development megafunds, 118 “Neglected Risks, Financial Innovation and Financial Fragility” (Gennaioli, Shleifer, and Vishny), 42 Network effects, 181 New York, skyscraper craze in, 74–75 New York City, prisoner-rehabilitation program in

The Innovation Paradox: Developing-Country Capabilities and the Unrealized Promise of Technological Catch-Up

by Xavier Cirera and William Francis Maloney  · 14 Jun 2017  · 373pp  · 109,964 words

institutions then gave rise to other institutions, which reinforced the role of business, innovation, and investment in societal development.16 By the early fourteenth century, financial innovations in Venice included the forerunners of limited-liability joint-stock companies; markets for debt, equity, and mortgage instruments; bankruptcy laws that distinguished illiquidity from insolvency

Empire of the Fund: The Way We Save Now

by William A. Birdthistle  · 15 May 2016  · 375pp  · 106,189 words

an imprudent one. Risks Yet to Mature The 2008 crash may have provoked target-date funds to bite their investors but perhaps, like dogs, every financial innovation should be allowed one bite. Perhaps, too, we might assume that the spate of congressional hearings, regulatory inquiries, and associated hand-wringing that followed the

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our vital monetary sustenance. The leaks can come slowly and steadily, through fees, or more quickly and alarmingly through schemes of unethical advisers. More recent financial innovations—such as 401(k)s, target-date funds, ETFs, and money market funds—certainly have the potential to plug and even to overcome these leaks

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, 95 Minn. L. Rev. 187 (2010). 4.Investment Company Institute, 2015 Fact Book. 5.But see Eric A. Posner & E. Glen Weyl, An FDA for Financial Innovation: Applying the Insurable Interest Doctrine to Twenty-First-Century Financial Markets,107 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1307 (2013). 6.Henry M. Paulson Jr., On the

Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible

by William N. Goetzmann  · 11 Apr 2016  · 695pp  · 194,693 words

development of problem solving, but they also set up a conflict between traditional and quantitative modes of thought. This conflict is heightened during periods of financial innovation and financial disaster. Not only did financial architecture challenge traditional institutions, it also challenged traditional conceptual frameworks for dealing with the unknown. Cultural notions of

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create cities, to explore new worlds, to expand and equalize economic opportunity, to control risk, and to provide for an uncertain future. But at times financial innovation has created serious disequilibria in and across societies; disruptions that have defined the fundamental conflicts in the modern world and that will continue to shape

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the individual and the state. The basic instrument of this realignment was a system of public finance that had a number of unprecedented elements. Without financial innovation—and unique financial resources—the experiment of democracy in ancient Athens may not have succeeded. Historian Hans Van Wees, a professor at University College London

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own, without the incursion of Western powers in the nineteenth century, would China ever have become a capitalist power? China has a long history of financial innovation. The Chinese invented metallic coinage, paper money, bills of exchange, transferable rights certificates, sophisticated accounting and management systems, and securitized lending. Examples of wealthy entrepreneurs

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, financial institutions, private partnerships, and business organizations can be found throughout China’s history. Given all these financial innovations, why were the first global corporations European in origin, not Chinese? I argue in Part II of this book that the answer is rooted fundamentally

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principles, and recognition of the crucial role of money and finance. The third distinctively Chinese financial development is the role of government in enterprise. When financial innovations occurred in China, they were often appropriated for the benefit of the government, not the individual. Through the lens of modern capitalism, China is a

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used in the silk industry—became the first durable medium for bills that could be passed from hand to hand and could circulate for years. Financial innovation relies on the technology of documentation, recording, and contracting. Along with the Mesopotamian invention of clay tablets and the apparently simultaneous Eurasian discovery of metallic

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coinage, the Chinese development of metal-plate printing on durable paper is one of the most enduring legacies of financial innovation. HEAVY CASH Despite being a golden age of Chinese culture, the Song was also a period during which the country fought a constant and ultimately

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, and indispensable are probably not. Given the random outcome of historical events, another set of institutions might have emerged to solve the same financial problems. Financial innovation is thus a series of accidents of history—the caprice of time, location, and opportunity. The Templar financial empire is interesting as evidence that different

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a system of purely monetary obligations and was the conceptual foundation for Europe’s unique financial architecture. The central argument of this book is that financial innovations emerged to solve economic problems of time and geography, but they inevitably engendered new problems. The Templar organization provided a stable, long-lived institution that

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fiscal weakness rather than strength; it was born from desperation and survived through the state’s inability to repay capital. Nevertheless, it was a major financial innovation. It enabled the government to rapidly focus financial resources at a time of need and convert them into military assets. The failure of the expedition

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prevalence) of private finance through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, they did not stop European cities and states from making frequent use of this financial innovation. Nor did they likely stem the demand for savings instruments by the European populace. However, what emerged from the debate were several key concepts. First

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of invested capital. In exchange for this long-term capital commitment, the shares were allowed to trade freely. The scholars argue that liquidity was a financial innovation that explicitly compensated for capital lockup. Tradability of VOC shares was not “borrowed” from the Bazacle or San Giorgio precedent but adopted as a local

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Amsterdam’s. Rotterdam boasted a number of successful bankers, a lively shipping trade, and a full range of financial services, including insurance. Nevertheless, Roeters argued, financial innovations taking place at this very moment in London threatened the competitive viability of Rotterdam. One innovation in particular loomed large. London financiers had just launched

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a national behemoth that swallowed the national debt. Yet on the other hand, with the creation of the insurance companies, risk sharing was revolutionized through financial innovation. A series of regulatory actions in 1720 responded to aggressive company actions by the insurance firms and other even more creative enterprises. These firms at

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made it possible. DUTCH INTERPRETATION It is through the eyes of the Dutch imitators of the British bubble companies that one can truly understand which financial innovations captured the public imagination in 1720. The eloquent arguments for the Rotterdam company of course stress the importance of a new institution for risk sharing

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the collapse. We are at risk of repeating this mistake today. Since the most recent crash, securitization of mortgages is dismissed as a hopelessly complex financial innovation that failed, and society has turned the modern crisis into a simplistic morality play with leading financiers as villains. These archetypes are dangerous because of

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had made a comeback in many different forms, and financiers had developed ways of collateralizing paper money and complicated bonds of all sorts. These sophisticated financial innovations provided a means to transform illiquid assets to liquid securities. This may sound a bit technical, but as we shall see, the drive for secure

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wilderness.8 Chevalier’s observations ring as true in the twenty-first century as they did in the nineteenth century. REFLECTIONS ON EUROPEAN INNOVATION The financial innovation of the eighteenth century in Europe set it on a distinct course from China. The century began with innovations of probabilistic thinking and mathematics. Its

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their commodity trade. The plantation loan system began as a means to finance transatlantic commodity trade, but the merchants who led the way in this financial innovation ultimately developed into the world’s first investment bankers. Although they continued merchant trade, they discovered that the underwriting and issuance of asset-backed securities

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floated. Chinese compradors were actively investing in many of the companies launched in treaty ports in the nineteenth century. In a curious echo of the financial innovations in 1720, some of these were insurance and shipping firms. Chinese merchants invested significant capital in the Union Insurance Company of Macao (1835), the Canton

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the deeper roots of this kind of joint public-private structure earlier in Chinese history (see Chapter 9). It can rightly be regarded as a financial innovation—a new re-configuration of corporate governance that sought to reconcile the traditional Chinese governmental control and value extraction with modern corporate forms. The question

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hold stocks that are in the index. This “index effect” is minor, however, and is a relatively innocuous, if unintended, consequence of a generally positive financial innovation. Thus, by the mid-1970s, America had finally rediscovered the virtues of stock market investing and the attractiveness of an inexpensive, well-diversified investment portfolio

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are efficient at the margin but whether transforming geological assets into financial assets makes sense. A NEW ARCHITECTURE Sovereign wealth funds represent a striking new financial innovation that might well realign world economy and diplomacy. Perhaps this is why other countries are getting into the act. Although the trend has been led

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kinds of societies. We are free to repurpose past successes and learn from past failures about what to avoid. The experience of five millennia of financial innovation, however, suggests that finance and civilization will forever be intertwined. NOTES INTRODUCTION 1. Goetzmann, William H. 2009. Beyond the Revolution: A History of American Thought

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Van De Mieroop, Marc. 2014. “Silver as a Financial Tool in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia,” in Peter Bernholz and Roland Vaubel (eds.), Explaining Monetary and Financial Innovation: A Historical Analysis. Financial and Monetary Policy Studies, vol. 39. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, pp. 17–29. 6. See Aubet, María Eugenia. 2013. Commerce

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Review 119(5): 1333–1403. 21. Malmendier, Ulrike. 2005. “Roman Shares,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 38. 22. Cicero, M. Tullius. 1891. “Against Publius Vatinius,” in The Orations of Marcus Tullius

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Ana Mata-Fink. 2005. “Records from a Seventh Century Pawn Shop,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 56–64. 4. Goetzmann, William N., and K. Geert Rouwenhorst. 2005. The Origins of Value

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: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 62. 5. Elman, Benjamin A. 2013. Civil Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China. Cambridge

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Series. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. CHAPTER 13 1. Goetzmann, William, and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.). 2005. The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 131. 2. Goetzmann and Rouwenhorst (2005), p. 134. 3. Goetzmann and Rouwenhorst (2005), p. 135

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Neal, Larry. 2005. “Venture Shares in the Dutch East India Company,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 167. CHAPTER 19 1. Richetti, John J. 2005. The Life of Daniel Defoe: A Critical

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), p. 50. 12. Murphy, Antoine. 2005. “John Law: Innovating Theorist and Policy Maker,” in William Goetzmann and Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 225–238. 13. Murphy (2005), p. 163. 14. Murphy (2005), p. 167. 15. Neal

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Howe. 2. See Guinnane, Timothy. 2005. “German Debt in the Twentieth Century,” in William Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 327–341. 3. Easterly, William. 2003. “Can foreign aid buy growth?” Journal of Economic Perspectives

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of American Thought from Paine to Pragmatism. New York: Basic Books. Goetzmann, William N., and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.). 2005. The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goetzmann, William N., and Elisabeth Köll. 2005. “The History of Corporate Ownership in China: State Patronage

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and Giroux. Guinnane, Timothy. 2005. “German Debt in the Twentieth Century,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 327–341. Hadden, Peter. 1994. On the Shoulders of Merchants: Exchange and the Mathematical Conception

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Ana Mata-Fink. 2005. “Records from a Seventh Century Pawn Shop,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 56–64. Hansmann, Henry, Reinier Kraakman, and Richard Squire. 2006. “Law and the rise of

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.org/cache/epub/6969/pg6969.html. Malmendier, Ulrike. 2005. “Roman Shares,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 31–42. Malthus, T. R., Donald Winch, and Patricia James. 1992. Malthus: An Essay on

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: Oxford University Press. ———. 2005. “John Law: Innovating Theorist and Policy Maker,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 225–238. Neal, Larry. 1993. The Rise of Financial Capitalism in the Age of Reason

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University Press. ———. 2005. “Venture Shares of the Dutch East India Company,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 165–175. Neal, Larry, and Jeffrey Williamson. 2014. The Cambridge History of Capitalism, vol. 1

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. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2005. “The Invention of Interest: Sumerian Loans,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 17–30. ———. 2014. “Silver as a Financial Tool in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia,” in Peter

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Bernholz and Roland Vaubel (eds.), Explaining Monetary and Financial Innovation: A Historical Analysis. Financial and Monetary Policy Studies vol. 39. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, pp. 17–29. Van der Spek, Robartus J. 1997. “New evidence

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. Von Glahn, Richard. 2005. “The Origins of Paper Money in China,” in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 65–90. Von Reden, Sitta. 2007. Money in Ptolemaic Egypt: From the Macedonian Conquest to

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; structured investment vehicles and, 385–86 financial engineering: crisis of 2008 and, 285–86, 385; French roots of, 276–83, 287. See also option pricing financial innovation: benefits of, 14; disruptions associated with, 11, 12; risks associated with, 500–501 financial technology: accidents of history in development of, 219; duality in nature

Investment: A History

by Norton Reamer and Jesse Downing  · 19 Feb 2016

markets, and most important, the conditions of creditworthiness. Progress in Managing Cyclical Crises 223 There is a little irony to the effects of financial innovation. Financial innovation, of which securitization is a part, serves to socialize risk. It spreads risk from the balance sheets of a few to the balance sheets of

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, foreign governments, municipalities, pensions, individuals, and other institutions. They all had to endure the financial shock at once because of this common source of risk. Financial innovation, for all the good it normally does, had now created a situation not unlike the outbreak of a deadly virus: at first, nobody was quite

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), no. 5 (1994): 86–91. Valerie Hansen and Ana Mata-Fink, “Records from a Seventh-Century Pawnshop in China,” in The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, eds. William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 54–58; Homer and Sylla, History of

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. 4 (December 2009): 1085–1086. 143. Toutain, Economic Life of the Ancient World, 246. 144. Ulrike Malmendier, “Roman Shares,” in The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, eds. William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 35–36. 145. Malmendier, “Law and Finance

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, New Haven, CT, December 2004), http://ssrn.com /abstract=636146, 15. K. Geert Rouwenhorst, “The Origins of Mutual Funds,” in The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, eds. William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 254. Rouwenhorst, “Origins of Mutual Funds

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-as-sec-set-for-proposal. Hansen, Valerie, and Ana Mata-Fink. “Records from a Seventh-Century Pawnshop in China.” In The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, eds. William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst, 54–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Haron, Sudin, and Wan Nursofiza

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. “Law and Finance ‘at the Origin.’” Journal of Economic Literature 47, no. 4 (December 2009): 1076–1108. ——. “Roman Shares.” In The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, eds. William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst, 31–42. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. ——. “Societas.” Working paper, Department of

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of Management, Yale University, New Haven, CT, December 2004. http://ssrn.com /abstract=636146. ——. “The Origins of Mutual Funds.” In The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, eds. William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst, 249–269. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Rubin, Jared. “The Lender

Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World

by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott  · 9 May 2016  · 515pp  · 126,820 words

, Chain.com Christian Lundkvist, Balanc3 David McKay, President and Chief Executive Officer, RBC Janna McManus, Global PR Director, BitFury Mickey McManus, Maya Institute Jesse McWaters, Financial Innovation Specialist, World Economic Forum Blythe Masters, CEO, Digital Asset Holdings Alistair Mitchell, Managing Partner, Generation Ventures Carlos Moreira, Founder, Chairman, and CEO, WISeKey Tom Mornini

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because service providers or employers insist on nothing stronger. Consider the typical financial intermediary: it doesn’t specialize in developing secure technology; it specializes in financial innovation. In the year that Satoshi published his white paper, data breaches at such financial firms as BNY Mellon, Countrywide, and GE Money accounted for over

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?”26 Wall Street trades in risk, and this technology can materially reduce counterparty risk, settlement risk, and thus systemic risk across the system. Jesse McWaters, financial innovation lead at the World Economic Forum, told us, “The most exciting thing about distributed ledger technology is how traceability can improve systemic stability.” He believes

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), a leading networked institution, has been a vocal proponent of blockchain technology. The blockchain was front and center at Davos in January 2016. Jesse McWaters, financial innovation lead at the WEF, believes blockchain technology is a general-purpose technology, like the Internet, which we can use to make markets radically more efficient

The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)

by Robert J. Gordon  · 12 Jan 2016  · 1,104pp  · 302,176 words

built for owners, with mortgages provided by four associations, and a bank executive estimated that 85 percent of those purchases were “working men.” A parallel financial innovation was the development of the real estate mortgage bond, which greatly facilitated the enormous but unsustainable boom in building both large and small apartment buildings

The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance

by Eswar S. Prasad  · 27 Sep 2021  · 661pp  · 185,701 words

technologies have come to be encapsulated by the portmanteau term Fintech. Later, we will see how the Fintech revolution is touching different aspects of finance. Financial innovation is nothing new, of course, and it is worth bearing in mind that revolutions have dark sides as well. When Innovation Ended in a Crash

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eligibility requirements for loans, giving borrowers easier access to credit for purchasing houses and automobiles. Updated and less stringent regulatory standards were expected to encourage financial innovations by unshackling the sector from onerous oversight. Regulators could take a more hands-off approach because the private sector would now have more effective ways

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banks and other existing financial institutions. How governments respond to these developments, especially in how they assess and address the potential benefits and risks of financial innovations, will have a pronounced impact on the risk / benefit balance. Taking Stock of Looming Changes Recent Fintech innovations—including those underpinning cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin

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is safer and cheaper for them as well as for businesses. Retail CBDCs could function as payment mechanisms that provide stability without necessarily limiting private financial innovations or displacing privately managed payment systems. Sweden’s Riksbank is actively exploring the issuance of an e-krona, a digital complement to cash, with the

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sector–led innovations could generate substantial benefits for households and corporations. In this respect, the key challenge for central banks and regulators lies in balancing financial innovation with risk management. A passive or excessively risk-averse approach to these developments could limit domestic innovation and cede the ground to foreign payment providers

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often do not have large, powerful incumbents that thwart progress and block the entry of new firms. Fourth, some of the technologies that are powering financial innovations—especially mobile phone–based technologies—are widely available and do not need massive infrastructure investments. The potential benefits of Fintech innovations are also greater in

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and scope of central banks’ activities. There are thorny questions about whether a CBDC that inherently carries an official imprimatur could stifle private sector–led financial innovations and perhaps even decimate traditional commercial banks by drawing deposits away from them. Central banks, which already grapple with multiple and often conflicting mandates, are

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private sector in creating money and running the financial system will be a recurring theme in this book. As we will see in later chapters, financial innovations tend to shift this balance, and governments regularly face the difficult question of whether to accept such changes or take action to reset the balance

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be desirable. Given the cost structure and financial incentives that traditional banks face, they might have little interest in pursuing such business. This is where financial innovations come into play, as we will see in Chapter 3. Equity and Bond Markets Banks are not the only game in town when it comes

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these opportunities. This is an area in which new financial technologies can play a beneficial role by broadening such access. The Risk and Reward of Financial Innovations There are certain risks—unexpected sharp changes in exchange rates and interest rates—that some corporations and investors are forced to confront in the normal

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, some of these insurance companies were unable to pay, putting themselves and investors in these derivatives at risk of financial ruin. Another example of how financial innovations can have benefits but spawn unanticipated risks is embodied in securitization, the process of creating new types of securities from a pool of assets. A

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for new products and financial institutions’ desire to earn handsome fees by creating and marketing such securities. These point to the dark side of unfettered financial innovations. A simple caveat emptor (“buyer beware”) approach to such innovations, which was the attitude many financial regulators adopted at the time, no longer seems tenable

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the new wave of Fintech innovations. Investment Banks There is one more set of players who are relevant to financial markets and, often, responsible for financial innovations. Investment banks provide specialized expertise in a variety of areas, ranging from wealth management for rich households to helping companies that are engaged in takeovers

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often at the forefront of finance than stodgier commercial banks that manage deposits and loans; unsurprisingly, they play a role in some narratives related to financial innovations that we will encounter later in this book. Payment Systems Payment systems are the arteries that carry the lifeblood of finance. Payments between households and

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financial regulation; and low interest rates that sparked the search for new sources of profit and lower costs in financial markets. While many of these financial innovations had their origins in the 2000s, it is only over the last decade that they have taken firmer root and proliferated. Wide Sweep of Fintech

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for financial markets but also for economic activity and monetary policy. Some of these issues, including the challenges that policymakers and regulators face in fostering financial innovation while managing risks, will be addressed in Chapter 9. For now, let us explore the major areas into which Fintech is making inroads and then

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fall through cracks in the regulatory system, leaving customers who do business with them exposed without the protection of a government-mandated safety net. Moreover, financial innovations sometimes serve as a cloak for fresh forms of financial fraud. The spectacular rise of the Munich-based international payments provider Wirecard AG, which ended

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’ rights. Both advanced and developing economies face the challenge of ensuring that households and small-scale businesses are educated about the benefits and risks of financial innovations. Access to such innovations without a clear understanding and appreciation of the risks can be dangerous. Greater and easier credit availability is a boon to

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. Rather, these tensions are coming to a head in China sooner than in other parts of the world on account of the rapid pace of financial innovation in that country. Indeed, advanced economies with supposedly far better regulatory frameworks and expertise have not been spared from these problems. Take the example of

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have since jumped on the bandwagon. Regulatory Sandboxes Regulatory sandboxes are set up by a financial sector regulator to allow small-scale, controlled testing of financial innovations by private firms. Such innovations might otherwise never lift off the ground simply because they (or the firms involved in their creation) are unable to

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a few EU members. In the same year, about fifty regulatory agencies from a broad group of countries joined together in setting up the Global Financial Innovation Network. This body allows for coordination among regulatory authorities in different countries and provides a framework for working with firms that want to test innovative

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capacity and expertise since, for all their benefits, innovations can also bring new and unforeseen risks. Regulatory systems need to be flexible enough to accommodate financial innovations while keeping institution-specific as well as systemic risks under control. Other countries’ experiences can be useful in this context. For instance, in China, off

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such payment systems. Disentangling these factors is essential for designing regulatory sandboxes in a manner that is attuned to a country’s specific circumstances. Certain financial innovations that go beyond payment systems, including online lending platforms that are expanding rapidly in both advanced and emerging market economies, could bring additional benefits. Financial

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. There is also the prospect of entirely new forms of intermediation that rely on public consensus mechanisms rather than trust in official or private institutions. Financial innovations will generate new and as yet unknown risks, especially if financial market participants and regulators put undue faith in technology and let down their guard

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population, economically speaking, one’s feet have simply been placed on the treadmill forever.” See Baldwin’s Collected Essays (1998). The Risk and Reward of Financial Innovations A report on shadow banking from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis highlights some of the benefits of securitization: “Securitization allows for risk diversification

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,” Bank of Canada, January 2017, https://www.payments.ca/sites/default/files/project_jasper_primer.pdf. The project involves Payments Canada, the Bank of Canada, financial innovation firm R3 Lab and Research Centre, CIBC, TD, Scotiabank, Bank of Montreal, RBC, National Bank, and HSBC. The report claims that “Jasper marks a significant

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-innovation-hubs (the report seems to have a 2018 date on it but was released on January 7, 2019). For more information about the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN), including a list of members and initiatives, see https://www.thegfin.com/. The GFIN was modeled along the lines of a global sandbox

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Harald Uhlig. 2018. “Some Simple Bitcoin Economics.” NBER Working Paper No. 24483, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, September. Schindler, John. 2017. FinTech and Financial Innovation: Drivers and Depth. Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-081. Washington, DC: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Schnabel, Isabel, and Hyun Song

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, 355, 359–360; disruption of traditional, 5–8; equity markets in, 41–42, 369n; financial inclusion or access to, 53–55 (see also financial inclusion); financial innovation risk and reward in, 42–44; global crisis in (see global financial crisis); investment banks in, 44–45, 99; main functions of, 34–38, 56

Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe

by Gillian Tett  · 11 May 2009  · 311pp  · 99,699 words

] DANCING AROUND THE REGULATORS There was a critical juncture, around the time that Peter Hancock’s team seized on the idea of credit derivatives, when financial innovation might have followed a subtly different path. In the few years leading up to Hancock’s Boca off-site, regulators and many prominent banking experts

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Hancock sketched out its alternative vision for revitalizing the bank, maintaining its hallowed role as an independent player. Morgan would continue harnessing the power of financial innovation, such as derivatives, to make itself into a sharp, focused investment bank that could continually serve its clients with new products. His listeners were unmoved

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bank’s strategy had not risen at all. Most of the staff—the junior staff at least—shared Hancock’s belief in the power of financial innovation. But they also knew that the rest of Wall Street was making much higher returns from the internet and financial merger boom than J.P

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again, and with the wonders of dot-coms soundly repudiated, attention would turn anew to the marvelous potential of credit derivatives and other forms of financial innovation. On January 3, 2001, the US Federal Reserve suddenly announced a 50-basis-point cut in interest rates, reducing them to 6 percent. That news

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not built his career in that sphere, he was not overly impressed by the complexities or potential of high finance. He wasn’t antagonistic towards financial innovation, but he wasn’t reverential either. He believed that the only way to run a bank effectively was to regard it as a business—nothing

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pay. “How complex do you think it is to run a credit card business?” he sometimes liked to challenge his listeners, when the subject of financial innovation came up. “Let me tell you—it’s friggin’ complex! Getting to grips with credit cards is one of the most complicated challenges you get

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shunned the limelight. Outside the bank, few observers had ever even heard of Winters. In addition, Dimon had never shown any public passion for complex financial innovation, which was Winters’s strong suit. “I’ve got a rock star for a boss now!” Winters sometimes joked to colleagues. “But at least it

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Feldstein. Back in the days when the J.P. Morgan team had concocted its derivatives dream, Feldstein had believed deeply in the intellectual arguments behind financial innovation. He was utterly convinced that if tools such as derivatives were implemented in a rational, efficient manner, they would vastly improve the financial system and

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, Bernanke and his predecessor also hoped that any “attendant price fall” would not lead to a financial shock, because the blow would be softened by financial innovation. Back in the 1980s, the savings and loan crisis had devastated some banks because they were not able to shed credit risk. By 2007, though

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economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Bill White and Claudio Borio, the two most senior economists at the BIS, presented a paper warning that not all financial innovation was good: “The changes in the financial and monetary regime [in the past twenty years] may have potentially increased the scope for financial imbalances to

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creative and groundbreaking as anything he had ever concluded during his days at J.P. Morgan; to him, this was a prime example of true financial innovation at work. The crisis seemed to have been averted, at least at Cairn, but ominous portents would soon signal that this was merely the end

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pathbreaking Black-Scholes formula that had played a crucial role in the development of derivatives. For seven long years, Hancock had extolled the virtues of financial innovation, often in the face of client skepticism. Even as the banking world reeled in shock in late 2007, he remained committed to the cause. “A

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, and others threw lavish dinners for favored guests, and bank executives strutted on the conference room stages, extolling the virtues of free markets, globalization, and financial innovation. Sleek black limousines whisked them between meetings at hotels in close proximity; they were too grand to trudge through snowy slush. This year a funereal

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would be happy to slip out of the formal reception, grab a toboggan, and hurtle down the slopes of Davos. Winters also remained convinced that financial innovation could be a thoroughly good thing. He had seen at first hand the utterly disastrous consequences when innovation was used in an unwise manner; but

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years, he ran a consultancy with Roberto Mendoza, another former J.P. Morgan banker, and Robert Merton, the Nobel Prize–winning economist, offering advice on financial innovation. But the venture never truly flourished. Hancock sometimes found it hard to convince clients to adopt his creative and innovative ideas or even to understand

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13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown

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I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay

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The Inequality Puzzle: European and US Leaders Discuss Rising Income Inequality

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Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis

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The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism

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Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World

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No Slack: The Financial Lives of Low-Income Americans

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Why We Can't Afford the Rich

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The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy

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The Rise of the Quants: Marschak, Sharpe, Black, Scholes and Merton

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Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance

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Future Files: A Brief History of the Next 50 Years

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Capitalism in America: A History

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The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse

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Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream

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Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity Into Prosperity

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Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages

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Culture and Prosperity: The Truth About Markets - Why Some Nations Are Rich but Most Remain Poor

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The Making of Global Capitalism

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Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero

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Barometer of Fear: An Insider's Account of Rogue Trading and the Greatest Banking Scandal in History

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Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism

by Bhu Srinivasan  · 25 Sep 2017  · 801pp  · 209,348 words

Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics

by Robert Skidelsky  · 13 Nov 2018

Extreme Economies: Survival, Failure, Future – Lessons From the World’s Limits

by Richard Davies  · 4 Sep 2019  · 412pp  · 128,042 words

Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals

by Oliver Bullough  · 10 Mar 2022  · 257pp  · 80,698 words

Arguing With Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future

by Paul Krugman  · 28 Jan 2020  · 446pp  · 117,660 words

The Sport and Prey of Capitalists

by Linda McQuaig  · 30 Aug 2019  · 263pp  · 79,016 words

Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Sixth Edition

by Kindleberger, Charles P. and Robert Z., Aliber  · 9 Aug 2011

Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation

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MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them

by Nouriel Roubini  · 17 Oct 2022  · 328pp  · 96,678 words

A First-Class Catastrophe: The Road to Black Monday, the Worst Day in Wall Street History

by Diana B. Henriques  · 18 Sep 2017  · 526pp  · 144,019 words

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

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Your Computer Is on Fire

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Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future

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Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?

by Brett Christophers  · 17 Nov 2020  · 614pp  · 168,545 words

Broken Markets: A User's Guide to the Post-Finance Economy

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How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy

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Panderer to Power

by Frederick Sheehan  · 21 Oct 2009  · 435pp  · 127,403 words

Financial Market Meltdown: Everything You Need to Know to Understand and Survive the Global Credit Crisis

by Kevin Mellyn  · 30 Sep 2009  · 225pp  · 11,355 words

Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else

by Chrystia Freeland  · 11 Oct 2012  · 481pp  · 120,693 words

Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems

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Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future

by Martin Ford  · 4 May 2015  · 484pp  · 104,873 words

Fed Up: An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve Is Bad for America

by Danielle Dimartino Booth  · 14 Feb 2017  · 479pp  · 113,510 words

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities

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Profiting Without Producing: How Finance Exploits Us All

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The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality

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Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises

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What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider's Story of Organizational Drift and Its Unintended Consequences

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Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism

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Capitalism: Money, Morals and Markets

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The Global Minotaur

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Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems

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Capital Without Borders

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Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown

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The Default Line: The Inside Story of People, Banks and Entire Nations on the Edge

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Philanthrocapitalism

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The Future of Money

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What They Do With Your Money: How the Financial System Fails Us, and How to Fix It

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Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?

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The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties

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The Currency Cold War: Cash and Cryptography, Hash Rates and Hegemony

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The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order

by Rush Doshi  · 24 Jun 2021  · 816pp  · 191,889 words

The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America

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Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World

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Tomorrow's Capitalist: My Search for the Soul of Business

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Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy That Works for Progress, People and Planet

by Klaus Schwab and Peter Vanham  · 27 Jan 2021  · 460pp  · 107,454 words

The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers--And the Coming Cashless Society

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Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry

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The New Depression: The Breakdown of the Paper Money Economy

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Money: The Unauthorized Biography

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All the Money in the World

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The Long Boom: A Vision for the Coming Age of Prosperity

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The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism Is the World Economy's Only Hope

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After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead

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The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

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Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier

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Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back

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The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire

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When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence

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The Finance Curse: How Global Finance Is Making Us All Poorer

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War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Year History of Empires, Adventures, and Debt

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China's Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of the Chinese Miracle

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The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

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Bill Marriott: Success Is Never Final--His Life and the Decisions That Built a Hotel Empire

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Money Free and Unfree

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A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend Them Back

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The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest

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A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond

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What's Next?: Unconventional Wisdom on the Future of the World Economy

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The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street

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Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives

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Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car

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System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot

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Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist

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The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong With Banking and What to Do About It

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Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer-And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

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Servant Economy: Where America's Elite Is Sending the Middle Class

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Where Does Money Come From?: A Guide to the UK Monetary & Banking System

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Broken Markets: How High Frequency Trading and Predatory Practices on Wall Street Are Destroying Investor Confidence and Your Portfolio

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Modernising Money: Why Our Monetary System Is Broken and How It Can Be Fixed

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Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It

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The New Economics: A Bigger Picture

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Expected Returns: An Investor's Guide to Harvesting Market Rewards

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Who Needs the Fed?: What Taylor Swift, Uber, and Robots Tell Us About Money, Credit, and Why We Should Abolish America's Central Bank

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Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity

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The Social Life of Money

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Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side

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The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan

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Bitcoin Billionaires: A True Story of Genius, Betrayal, and Redemption

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Robot Rules: Regulating Artificial Intelligence

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Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

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Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud

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Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI

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The Smartest Guys in the Room

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The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

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Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

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In FED We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic

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Confessions of a Microfinance Heretic

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A Man for All Markets

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The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe

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For Profit: A History of Corporations

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The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

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Venice: A New History

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A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing (Eleventh Edition)

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Paper Promises

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The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens

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The Revolution That Wasn't: GameStop, Reddit, and the Fleecing of Small Investors

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Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments

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The End of Theory: Financial Crises, the Failure of Economics, and the Sweep of Human Interaction

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