This book discusses the role of central banks and draws lessons from examining their evolution over the past two centuries.

Central banks came out of the Great Recession with increased power and responsibilities. Indeed, central banks are often now seen as 'the only game in town', and a place to put innumerable problems vastly exceeding their traditional remit. These new powers do not fit well, however, with the independence of central banks, remote from the democratic control of government. Central Banking in Turbulent Times examines fundamental questions about the central banking system, asking whether the model of an independent central bank devoted to price stability is the final resting point of a complex development that started centuries ago. It dissects the hypothesis that the Great Recession has prompted a reassessment of that model; a renewed emphasis on financial stability has emerged, possibly vying for first rank in the hierarchy of objectives of central banks. This raises the risk of dilemmas, since the Great Recession brought into question implicit assumptions that the pursuit of price stability would also lead to financial stability. In addition, the border between monetary and fiscal policy was blurred both in the US and in Europe. Central Banking in Turbulent Times asks whether the model prevailing before the Great Recession has been irrevocably altered. Are we entering, as Charles Goodhart has hypothesized, into the 'fourth epoch' of central banking? Are changes to central banks part of a move away from the global liberal order that seemed to have prevailed at the turn of the century? Central Banking in Turbulent Times seeks to answer these questions as it examines how changes can allow for the maintenance of price stability, while adapting to the long-term consequences of the Great Recession.

This book is the first complete survey of the evolution of monetary institutions and practices in Western countries from the Middle Ages to today. It radically rethinks previous attempts at a history of monetary institutions by avoiding institutional approach and shifting the focus away from the Anglo-American experience. Previous histories have been hamstrung by the linear, teleological assessment of the evolution of central banks. Free from such assumptions, Ugolini’s work offers bankers and policymakers valuable and profound insights into their institutions. Using a functional approach, Ugolini charts an historical trajectory longer and broader than any other attempted on the subject. Moving away from the Anglo-American perspective, the book allows for a richer (and less biased) analysis of long-term trends. The book is ideal for researchers looking to better understand the evolution of the institutions that underlie the global economy.

As the world economy emerges from the financial crisis, critics are announcing an end of the American era. The United States is said to be in an inexorable decline, and the expectation for the 21st century is for China to eclipse America and for the contours of global governance to blur. The loss of America's preeminent status will undercut our sway abroad and our safety and standard of living at home. But is America really done? Is the American era really over? In this provocative account, based on interviews with senior policymakers and cutting-edge research, Kati Suominen argues that talk of the end of Pax Americana is more smoke than fire. The international crisis did not fundamentally change the way the world is run. The G20 is but an American-created sequel to the G8, the US dollar still reigns supreme, and no country has resigned from the US-built, post-war financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund. This continuity reflects an absence of alternatives; there are no rival orders that would match the growth and globalization generated by leaving the United States at the helm. But Washington has no time for complacency. The American order is peerless, but it is also imperiled. To transcend this critical moment in history, the United States must step up and lead. Only America can uphold its order. In an interdependent world economy of rising powers, the US must stand for strategic multilateralism: striking deals with pivotal powers to tame destabilizing financial imbalances, securing free and fair markets abroad for US banks and businesses, and transforming the IMF and emerging Asian and European financial schemes into rapid responders to instability.

A study of the power struggle between Germany's central bank and the West German government to control monetary policy in the post-war era.

Offers a comprehensive analysis of the historical experiences of monetary policymaking of the world's largest central banks. Written in celebration of the 350th anniversary of the central bank of Sweden, Sveriges Riksbank. Includes chapters on other banks around the world written by leading economic scholars.

Documenting important milestones in the epic journey traversed by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) over the last 50 years, 50 Years of Central Banking in Kenya puts into perspective the evolution of central banking globally and within the East African region, and contemplates future prospects and challenges. The volume is timely, mainly because within the last 50 years the global financial landscape has shifted. Central bankers have expanded their mandates, beyond the singular focus on inflation, and consider economic growth as their other important objective. Bank regulation has moved from Basel I, to Basel II, and some countries have fully migrated to Basel III while some are still at the cross-roads. 50 Years of Central Banking in Kenya captures the wide-ranging discussions on central banking, from a symposium to celebrate the 50 year anniversary on 13 September 2016 in Nairobi. The participants at the symposium included current and former central bank governors from Kenya and the East Africa region, high level officials from multilateral financial institutions, policy makers, executives of commercial banks in Kenya, private sector practitioners, civil society agents, executives and researchers from think tanks based in Kenya and the Africa region, leading academics in banking and finance, and university students. Beyond the symposium, the volume highlights the evolution of specific functions of CBK over the last 50 years (such as monetary policy, bank regulation, and payments system), as well as developments in Kenya's financial system which strongly relate to the functionality of CBK, such as financial innovation, the evolution of financial markets, and non-bank financial institutions in Kenya.

There has been an increasing interest in financial markets across sociology, history, anthropology, cultural studies, and related disciplines over the past decades, with particular intensity since the 2007–2008 crisis which prompted new analyses of the workings of financial markets and how “scandals of Wall Street” might have huge societal ramifications. The sociologically inclined landscape of finance studies is characterized by different more or less well- established homogeneous camps, with more micro-empirical, social studies of finance approaches on the one end of the spectrum and more theoretical, often neo-Marxist approaches, on the other. Yet alternative approaches are also gaining traction, including work that emphasizes the cultural homologies and interconnections with finance as well as work that, more broadly, is both empirically rigorous and theoretically ambitious. Importantly, across these various approaches to finance, a growing body of literature is taking shape which engages finance in a critical manner. The term “critical finance studies” nonetheless remains largely unfocused and undefined. Against this backdrop, the key rationales of The Routledge Handbook of Critical Finance Studies are firstly to provide a coherent notion of this emergent field and secondly to demonstrate its analytical usefulness across a wide range of central aspects of contemporary finance. As such, the volume will offer a comprehensive guide to students and academics on the field of Finance and Critical Finance Studies, Heterodox Economics, Accounting, and related Management disciplines. Chapter 14 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This edited collection seeks to advance thinking on money and the monetary nature of the economy, macroeconomic analysis and economic policy, setting it within the context of current scholarship and global socioeconomic concerns, and the crisis in the economics discipline. A key aim is to highlight the central contribution that Sheila Dow has made to these fields. Bringing together an impressive panel of contributors, this volume explores topics including central bank independence, liquidity preferences, money supply endogeneity, financial regulation, regional finance and public debt. The essays in this first collection of two will be thought-provoking reading for advanced students and scholars of macroeconomics, monetary economics, central banking and heterodox economics. Contributors have a broad range of professional experience at universities, central banks, business, development institutions and policy advisories.

The Encyclopedia of Central Banking, co-edited by Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi, contains some 250 entries written by over 200 economists on topics related to monetary macroeconomics, central bank theory and policy, and the history of monetary