Business Ethics After The Global Financial Crisis

The global financial crisis (GFC) that began in 2007 concentrated attention on the morality of banking and financial activities. Just as mainstream businesses became increasingly defined by their financial performance, banks, it seemed, got themselves – and everyone else – into trouble through an over-emphasis on themselves as commercial enterprises that need pay little attention to traditional banking virtues or ethics. While the GFC had many causes, criticism was legitimately levelled at banks over the ethics of mortgage creation, excessive securitisation, executive remuneration, and high-pressure customer sales tactics, amongst other things. These criticisms mirror those that have been levelled at the business more generally, particular in the last decade, although the backdrop provided by the GFC is more dramatic, and the outcomes of supposed wrongdoing more severe. This book focuses on business ethics after the GFC; not on the crisis itself, but how we should respond to it. The GFC has focused minds on the proper role of ethics in the understanding and conduct of business activity, but it is essential to look beyond the crisis to address the deeper challenges that it highlights. The aim of this volume is to present examples of the latest philosophically-informed thinking across a range of ethical issues that relate to business activity, using the banks and the GFC – the consequences of which continue to reverberate – as a point of departure. The book will be of great value to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students interested in business, ethics in general, and business ethics in particular.

This timely book answers complex and perplexing questions raised by Wall Street's role in the financial crisis. What are the economic and moral connections between Wall Street and the overall economy? How did we arrive at this point in history where our most powerful financial institutions thwart rather than promote free markets, prosperity, and even social cohesion? Can the fractured relationship between Wall Street and Main Street be repaired? Wall Street Values chronicles the transformation of Wall Street's business model from serving clients to proprietary trading and explains how this shift undermined the ethical foundations of the modern financial industry. Michael A. Santoro and Ronald J. Strauss argue that post-millennial Wall Street is not only too big to fail but also a threat to the economy even when it succeeds. They describe how, more than a year before the government acknowledged the financial crisis, Wall Street icon Goldman Sachs saved itself by misleading its clients and impeding the information flow needed for the efficient functioning of free markets, thereby prolonging the mortgage bubble and adding to the financial and human cost of the crisis. They also present a nuanced critique of the government's role not only for the economic miscalculations leading to financial deregulation but also for failing to check the irrational exuberance of 2007 and 2008. Looking to the future, Santoro and Strauss make a compelling case for vigorous government enforcement of the Dodd-Frank Act in the face of Wall Street's opposition. They also argue, however, that effective government regulation is not enough; economic prosperity will be sustainable only if Wall Street professionals themselves begin an urgently needed conversation about their values and business ethics.

The Global Financial Crisis is acknowledged to be the most severe economic downturn since the 1930s, and one that is unique in its underlying causes, its scope, and its wider social, political and economic implications. This volume explores some of the ethical issues that it has raised.

What are the economic and moral connections between Wall Street and the overall economy? This book chronicles the transformation of Wall Street's business model from serving clients to proprietary trading and explains how this shift undermined the ethical foundations of the modern financial industry.

The Ethics of Banking analyzes the systemic and the ethical mistakes that led to the crisis. It keeps the middle ground between excusing all failures by the argument of a systemic crisis not to be taken responsibility for by the financial managers and the moralistic reproach that only moral failure is at the origin of the crisis. It investigates the role of speculation in the formation of the crisis and distinguishes between productive speculation for hedging and for securing market liquidity on the one hand, and unproductive and even detrimental hyper-speculation going far beyond of the degree of speculation that is necessary in a developed economy for the liquidity of financial markets, on the other hand. Hyper-speculation has increased the risks of the financial system and is still doing so.

"Professor De Bruin has written an important book. For all of the thousands of pages written on the recent global financial crisis, there is very little solid ethical analysis of the underlying causes and concepts. He makes a critical distinction between the motivation of financial actors and their competence, then argues that most of the analysis of the crisis has been about motivation. In particular many have called into question the very idea of capitalism as seeking to maximize profits for shareholders. While DeBruin admits that motivation is an important idea, he traces much of the difficulty to incompetence on the part of multiple stakeholders, who have no real motivation to learn about how the basic ideas in finance actually work"--

Bestselling author and professor Ted Malloch calls for real financial reform to restore confidence and fairness to a broken system From Ponzi schemes to the credit crisis to the real estate bubble, the financial industry seems to have lost its way on the road to riches. As private greed continues to undermine the public good, one might wonder what ever happened to business ethics. And how can we reform the global financial system to benefit everyone, rather than just the very lucky few? In The End of Ethics and the Way Back, the bestselling author of Doing Virtuous Business teams up with attorney and Yale University Postdoctoral Fellow, Jordan Mamorsky to examine the most recent failures of business virtue, prudence, and governance—from Bernie Madoff to Jon Corzine and MF Global—before offering a set of structural and holistic solutions for our current ethical crisis in global finance. Features compelling case studies that reveal the saturation of economic vice in global finance Suggests structural reforms to the global financial system that would increase confidence among consumers and encourage ethical behavior among finance professionals Written by Ted Malloch, author of the bestseller Doing Virtuous Business with attorney Jordan Mamorsky Ideal for financial regulators, business students and academics, and professionals in the finance industry

With cutting-edge insights from leading European and North American scholars, this authoritative book addresses the fundamental problems of business in an age of crisis whilst presenting radical, but practical, solutions. ø