Finance

Regulation and supervision of banks and financial markets are now upgraded in the euro area. Surveillance of macroeconomic performance of all EU countries is also intensified.

In the first ten chapters of our book, The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It, we discuss banking and the economics of funding as it applies to banks.

Europe can choose its musical accompaniment. In Berlin, 50 Cent’s All Things Fall Apart has just had its premiere. Or go back to Giuseppe Verdi, born two hundred years ago.

Internationalization of the renminbi is a stated goal of the Chinese government, its brief flirtation with Special Drawing Rights and an Asian Currency Unit notwithstanding. Chinese officials understand that a dollar-centric international monetary and financial system is a mixedblessing.

The Institute for New Economic Thinking held its annual plenary conference in Hong Kong from April 4-7, 2013 at the InterContinental Hotel in Kowloon. The event discussed Asia’s emergence in the global economy and other core issues.

Healthy innovation economies are the main driver of prosperity in the 21st century. But the three players that have traditionally sponsored basic research and invention in those economies are no longer willing or able to perform that role.

The developed economies of Europe, North America, and Japan are facing tremendous challenges related to indebtedness and stagnation. How will the developing economies of Asia respond to this challenge as they reorient their growth strategies to meet the rising aspirations oftheir people?

The Foundations of Economic Prosperity: The Lessons of Innovation Process and History

My remarks today will be focused primarily on features of the developed world’s financial system which led to the crisis of 2008 and to the Great Recession that followed, from which we are only slowly and painfully emerging.

In his recent lecture at the Cass Business School, Lord Turner noted that even mentioning the possibility of overt monetary financing was akin to breaking a taboo.

Shadowy banking is safety-net arbitrage. It employs substitutes for products and activities performed within the traditional banking sector.