Joscha Wullweber – författare

Today''s global financial system bears little resemblance to what it was at the end of the twentieth century. Shadow banking—financial activity taking place outside existing regulatory frameworks—has grown so important that it now serves as the backbone of the entire system. The shadow banking system, however, is highly unstable and the main reason why the financial system has remained in crisis mode since the 2008 financial crisis. To maintain stability, central banks like the Fed and the European Central Bank have come to use radical new monetary policy instruments which were inconceivable until very recently. Without intervention on the part of central banks, existing financial systems would completely collapse.

As Joscha Wullweber shows, there has been a radical change in the state-market nexus. With governments refraining from strong and comprehensive fiscal and financial regulatory policies, central banks have become the main stabilizing force and the nodal point of financial circulation. These overburdened institutions are called on to make near-daily interventions to avert crisis. Wullweber calls this historic phase central bank capitalism. His book offers a lucid account of our current state of permanent crisis with its new dilemmas and paradoxes that pose enormous challenges to financial and economic stability.

With discussions on key theories of political economy, the Handbook introduces cultural and feminist political economies, engaging critically with ordoliberalism and New Public Management. Chapters feature discussions on political economic approaches to the global division of labor, financialization and dispossession in Latin America, ecological perspectives on sustainability in China, global exploitation chains in agriculture, and postcolonial criticisms of economic development. The Handbook concludes with an exploration of the relationship between political economy and social policy, global health, and public policies.

Providing a combination of critical engagement with the various theories of political economy and their application to key economic policies, this will be essential reading for students and academics in comparative politics, economics and finance, international relations, political economy, public policy, and political science. Policymakers interested in addressing socially and environmentally unsustainable practices will also find this an illuminating and informative resource.