This book examines the history of what became one of Portugal’s largest banks, the Caixa Geral de Depósitos. The bank was founded in 1876 by the state to run public deposits, and evolved into a savings bank, catering for both public and private deposits. Its history goes beyond the history of banking, as it ties in with the role of the state in the banking sector and financial markets. The book weaves in and out of different political and international contexts, following the many changes of the Portuguese political regime and of its interactions with the national and international economy. The most important lesson from the study is that publicly owned institutions can compete successfully with the private sector when they simultaneously cater for the interests of policy makers as well as those of the public, in this case, the depositors. The history of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos therefore shows how the state of a peripheral economy is capable of successfully managing a large financial institution when the right set of incentives is in place. This work will be a valuable resource for researchers and students of financial and economic history at both the advanced undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It will also provide interesting insights for practitioners in the financial sector.

This book explores the potential for public banks to help finance the expansion, democratization, and sustainability of public water services in Europe, with implications for public water financing elsewhere in the world. Financing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 for water and sanitation will be enormously expensive and will also depend largely on public water operators. Where will this money to fund public water services come from? One option is public banks. These state-owned institutions constitute just under 20% of global banking assets, holding close to $50 trillion in assets. Many public banks have explicit mandates to finance public water management and related public goods, and they have been doing so for decades. And yet, despite a resurgence of interest in public banks, their roles and potential in funding public water services have been largely ignored by researchers and policy makers. This book aims to measure the scale and nature of interactions between public banks and public water operators in the European region; identify challenges and opportunities for deeper engagement between public banks and public water operators; recognize promising practices and how these might be transferred elsewhere in the world; and assess possibilities for more democratic forms of public bank and public water interactions. This volume will be of great use to students and researchers interested in political ecology and economy, development and cooperation, public policy as well as water governance and management. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Water International.

Tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax resistance are widespread phenomena in political, economic, social and fiscal history from antiquity through medieval, early modern and modern times. Histories of Tax Evasion, Avoidance and Resistance shows how different groups and individuals around the globe have succeeded or failed in not paying their due taxes, whether in kind or in cash, on their properties or on their crops. It analyses how, throughout history, wealthy and poor taxpayers have tried to avoid or reduce their tax burden by negotiating with tax authorities, through practices of legal or illegal tax evasion, by filing lawsuits, seeking armed resistance or by migration, and how state authorities have dealt with such acts of claim making, defiance, open resistance or elusion. It fills an important research gap in tax history, addressing questions of tax morale and fairness, and how social and political inequality was negotiated through taxation. It gives rich insights into the development of citizen-state relationships throughout the course of history. The book comprises case studies from Ancient Athens, Roman Egypt, Medieval Europe, Early Modern Mexico, the Ottoman Empire, Nigeria under British colonial rule, the United Kingdom of the early 20th century, Greece during the Second World War, as well as West Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and the United States in the 20th century, including transnational entanglements in the world of late-modern offshore finance and taxation. The authors are experts in fiscal, economic, financial, legal, social and/or cultural history. The book is intended for students, researchers and scholars of economic and financial history, social and world history and political economy. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license.

When European powers annexed parts of Asia, banking systems were an important part of that process. The essays in this edited collection are based on original research using primary sources in English, French, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. The book as a whole provides new insights into banking in imperial Asia and a platform for further research.

The financial crisis of 2008 aroused widespread interest in banking and financial history among policy makers, academics, journalists, and even bankers, in addition to the wider public. References in the press to the term 'Great Depression' spiked after the failure of Lehman Brothers in November 2008, with similar surges in references to 'economic history' at various times during the financial turbulence. In an attempt to better understand the magnitude of the shock, there was a demand for historical parallels. How severe was the financial crash? Was it, in fact, the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression? Were its causes unique or part of a well-known historical pattern? And have financial crises always led to severe depressions? Historical reflection on the recent financial crises and the long-term development of the financial system go hand in hand. This volume provides the material for such a reflection by presenting the state of the art in banking and financial history. Nineteen highly regarded experts present chapters on the economic and financial side of banking and financial activities, primarily though not solely in advanced economies, in a long-term comparative perspective. In addition to paying attention to general issues, not least those related to theoretical and methodological aspects of the discipline, the volume approaches the banking and financial world from four distinct but interrelated angles: financial institutions, financial markets, financial regulation, and financial crises.

This classic book offers a broad sweep of economic history from prehistoric times to the present, and explores the disparity of wealth among nations. Now in its fourth edition, A Concise Economic History of the World includes expanded coverage of recent developments in the European Union, transition economies, and East Asia.

The award-winning The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition is now available as a dynamic online resource. Consisting of over 1,900 articles written by leading figures in the field including Nobel prize winners, this is the definitive scholarly reference work for a new generation of economists. Regularly updated! This product is a subscription based product.

Understanding twenty-first century global financial integration requires a two-part background. The Handbook of Key Global Financial Markets, Institutions, and Infrastructure begins its description of how we created a financially-intergrated world by first examining the history of financial globalization, from Roman practices and Ottoman finance to Chinese standards, the beginnings of corporate practices, and the advent of efforts to safeguard financial stability. It then describes the architecture itself by analyzing its parts, such as markets, institutions, and infrastructure. The contributions of sovereign funds, auditing regulation, loan markets, property rights, compensation practices, Islamic finance, and others to the global architecture are closely examined. For those seeking substantial, authoritative descriptions and summaries, this volume will replace books, journals, and other information sources with a single, easy-to-use reference work. - Substantial articles by top scholars sets this volume apart from other information sources - Diverse international perspectives result in new opportunities for analysis and research - Rapidly developing subjects will interest readers well into the future