The New Financial Order

In his best-selling Irrational Exuberance, Robert Shiller cautioned that society's obsession with the stock market was fueling the volatility that has since made a roller coaster of the financial system. Less noted was Shiller's admonition that our infatuation with the stock market distracts us from more durable economic prospects. These lie in the hidden potential of real assets, such as income from our livelihoods and homes. But these ''ordinary riches,'' so fundamental to our well-being, are increasingly exposed to the pervasive risks of a rapidly changing global economy. This compelling and important new book presents a fresh vision for hedging risk and securing our economic future. Shiller describes six fundamental ideas for using modern information technology and advanced financial theory to temper basic risks that have been ignored by risk management institutions--risks to the value of our jobs and our homes, to the vitality of our communities, and to the very stability of national economies. Informed by a comprehensive risk information database, this new financial order would include global markets for trading risks and exploiting myriad new financial opportunities, from inequality insurance to intergenerational social security. Just as developments in insuring risks to life, health, and catastrophe have given us a quality of life unimaginable a century ago, so Shiller's plan for securing crucial assets promises to substantially enrich our condition. Once again providing an enormous service, Shiller gives us a powerful means to convert our ordinary riches into a level of economic security, equity, and growth never before seen. And once again, what Robert Shiller says should be read and heeded by anyone with a stake in the economy.

Nobel Prize-winning economist explains why we need to reclaim finance for the common good The reputation of the financial industry could hardly be worse than it is today in the painful aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. New York Times best-selling economist Robert Shiller is no apologist for the sins of finance—he is probably the only person to have predicted both the stock market bubble of 2000 and the real estate bubble that led up to the subprime mortgage meltdown. But in this important and timely book, Shiller argues that, rather than condemning finance, we need to reclaim it for the common good. He makes a powerful case for recognizing that finance, far from being a parasite on society, is one of the most powerful tools we have for solving our common problems and increasing the general well-being. We need more financial innovation—not less—and finance should play a larger role in helping society achieve its goals. Challenging the public and its leaders to rethink finance and its role in society, Shiller argues that finance should be defined not merely as the manipulation of money or the management of risk but as the stewardship of society's assets. He explains how people in financial careers—from CEO, investment manager, and banker to insurer, lawyer, and regulator—can and do manage, protect, and increase these assets. He describes how finance has historically contributed to the good of society through inventions such as insurance, mortgages, savings accounts, and pensions, and argues that we need to envision new ways to rechannel financial creativity to benefit society as a whole. Ultimately, Shiller shows how society can once again harness the power of finance for the greater good.

Protect yourself from the next financial meltdown with this game-changing primer on financial markets, the economy—and the meteoric rise of carry. The financial shelves are filled with books that explain how popular carry trading has become in recent years. But none has revealed just how significant a role it plays in the global economy—until now. A groundbreaking book sure to leave its mark in the canon of investing literature, The Rise of Carry explains how carry trading has virtually shaped the global economic picture—one of decaying economic growth, recurring crises, wealth disparity, and, in too many places, social and political upheaval. The authors explain how carry trades work—particularly in the currency and stock markets—and provide a compelling case for how carry trades have come to dominate the entire global business cycle. They provide thorough analyses of critical but often overlooked topics and issues, including: •The active role stock prices play in causing recessions—as opposed to the common belief that recessions cause price crashes •The real driving force behind financial asset prices •The ways that carry, volatility selling, leverage, liquidity, and profitability affect the business cycle •How positive returns to carry over time are related to market volatility—and how central bank policies have supercharged these returns Simply put, carry trading is now the primary determinant of the global business cycle—a pattern of long, steady but unspectacular expansions punctuated by catastrophic crises. The Rise of Carry provides foundational knowledge and expert insights you need to protect yourself from what have come to be common market upheavals—as well as the next major crisis.

World Financial Orders challenges the predominance of neo-liberalism as a mode of knowledge about contemporary world finance, and claims that it neglects the social and political bases as well as the malign consequences of change. He looks to the field of International Political Economy (IPE) to construct an alternative mode, one that critically restores society and politics. An 'historical' approach to IPE is advanced that accounts for modern world finance since the seventeenth century as a succession of structurally distinct hierarchical social orders. This book will be of interest to those working in the field of IPE and to those scholars, researchers and students from across the social sciences who seek to challenge the common-sense, neo-liberal explanation of contemporary world finance.

The author provides a clear portrait of the dramatic transformation of the global financial system in the late 20th century. Drawing on work by a prestigious and interdisciplinary set of specialists, this volume looks at the political economy of individual sectors of the financial services industry, at regional market patterns such as the EU and NAFTA, and at individual countries from the Asian NICs to Europe and the United States. The book captures the complexity and dynamics of a sector with vital implications for the future of global economic development.

Introduction : the new economics of debt and financial fragility /Moritz Schularik --Part 1. Finance unbound : the rise of finance and the economy.How to think about finance /Atif Mian ; comment by Karen Dynan --Reconsidering the costs and benefits of debt booms for the economy /Emil Verner ; comment by Holger Mueller --Part 2. Risk-taking : incentives, investors, institutions.Are bank CEO's to blame? /Rüdiger Fahlenbrach ; comment by Sameul G. Hanson --A new narrative of investors, subprime lending, and the 2008 crisis /Stefania Albanesi ; comment by Fernando Ferreira --Bank capital before and after financial crises /Òscar Jordà, Björn Richter, Moritz Schularick, and Alan M. Taylor ; comment by Anna Kovner --Part 3. Mispricing risks : credit booms and risk premia.Beliefs and risk-taking /Alessia de Stefani and Kaspar Zimmermann ; comment by Yueran Ma --A new approach to measuring banks' risk exposure /Juliane Begenau ; comment by Nina Boyarchenko --Is risk mispriced in credit booms? /Tyler Muir --Part 4. Financial crises : reconsidering the origins and consequences.Historical banking crises : a new database and a reassessment of their incidence and severity /Matthew Baron and Daniel Dieckelmann ; comment by Mark Carlson --Was the U.S. Great Depression a credit boom gone wrong? /Natascha Postel-Vinah ; comment by Eugene N. White --Sectoral credit booms and financial stability /Kärsten Muller ; comment by Orsola Costantini.

GetAbstract Summary: Get the key points from this book in less than 10 minutes. Economist Robert Shiller became a household name when he published his previous bestseller Irrational Exuberance just as the dot.com boom was peaking. In The New Financial Order, he capitalizes on his celebrity to put forward a thoughtful, detailed proposal for managing economic risks. This highly readable book portrays a future in which many serious individual financial risks are dispersed to savvy global investors, thanks to technology. Imagine violinists being able to insure their careers in addition to their Stradivarius instruments, developing countries securing generous loans from the first world by tying the repayment schedules to their future GDPs and a revamped tax system preventing the gap between rich and poor from widening. getAbstract suggests this book to risk-management professionals who want to step back and look at the big picture, as well as to anyone who has a stake in creating new financial products to meet twenty-first century needs. Book Publisher: Princeton UP.

In Misalignment: The New Financial Order and the Failure of Financial Regulation, Joel Seligman provides a broad account of banking, insurance, and securities regulation from the beginning of the United States through the 2007-2009 financial crisis and concludes with a plan for a fundamentally different approach to financial regulation that is more likely to avoid financial meltdowns in the future and minimize financial perturbations. The history of financial regulation in the United States is a history of crisis reaction. Before the New Deal, uncoordinated regulatory systems were established in banking and insurance. In the New Deal period, the U.S. achieved a long-stable model of financial regulation that atomized financial firms and substantially increased investor and depositor protection. After World War II, the New Deal financial regulatory model deteriorated and vast areas of finance evolved outside of regulation. No event better crystalized this deterioration than the financial debacle of 2007-2009. How was such a debacle possible in a nation whose financial regulatory system was long considered the finest in the world? More than any other cause, the misalignment of the Treasury, Federal Reserve System, and regulatory systems designed in earlier crises to address specific industries was overwhelmed by a New Financial Order, financial supermarkets that operated in several financial fields simultaneously. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 was at best a partial response to the greatest financial calamity in our history since the 1929-1932 stock market crash. The failure of Dodd-Frank to address the structure of financial regulation was its most conspicuous weakness. Misalignment proposes a plan for a different approach to financial regulation designed to avoid economic failures in the future and minimize financial disorder.