Finance Matters – serie

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) assess the creditworthiness of debt issuers on financial markets. They are private companies and the ratings they issue are judgements about the prospect of repayment of debt by an issuer in time and in full. A rating is not an investment recommendation, but it is an opinion about the creditworthiness of a financial product or an issuing bank, government, supra- or sub-national institution.

In recent years CRAs have gained an authority in bond markets that far surpasses their original design. The financial crisis of 2008 thrust the CRAs into the spotlight as their highly rated financial products turned out to be toxic assets. CRAs were blamed not only for their excessively optimistic ratings, but also for their complicity in creating them.

This short book introduces and explores the complex world of the credit rating industry: how it works, how it has evolved, the role it played in the financial crisis, and how it is regulated. Giulia Mennillo shows, as constitutive actors of global financial capitalism, CRAs have a social and political relevance that reaches well beyond finance into areas of transport, infrastructure, education and health and their impact is emblematic of the increasing financialization of our world.

The European Central Bank administers monetary policy for the eurozone and is tasked with maintaining price stability by keeping inflation below 2 per cent. This brief mandate belies the complexity of managing the monetary policy for the 19 member states of the euro, not to mention the political implications thereof.

This book sets out the history, development and day-to-day workings of this key institutional pillar of the European Union. It assesses its work, independence, the policies and instruments at its disposal and the evolution of its role during, and after, the eurozone crisis of 2010. Incomplete monetary union, Germany''s hegemonic ambitions and different economic policies from individual member countries are shown to pose formidable challenges to the ECB''s macroeconomic management.

Why are British banks so risk averse when it comes to providing long-term loan finance to businesses? In Europe the dominance of bank lending in the financing of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is well-observed. Yet in the UK exactly the opposite is the case, where most SME funding is via bank overdrafts and credit cards.

The roots of this significant difference lie partly in the historical, institutional, political and cultural structure of the British banking system, and in parallel explanatory factors in the UK SME population, but the real mystery is why, in the twentieth century, there appears to have been no significant change in the attitudes of British banks towards providing long-term loan finance to SMEs. Indeed, this risk aversion might have been expected to alter during the postwar period and the substantial expansion of consumer demand and expanded commodity production, but it did not.

This book explores not only how the historical formation of British banking structures produced such a relatively risk-averse arrangement compared to other European countries and the United States, but also why this banking attitude has persisted to the present day. The book concludes with a suite of recommendations necessary for British banks to provide a more balanced mix of financial provision to SMEs.

Before the Great Financial Crisis of 2008–09, significant reductions in official interest rates typically proved sufficient to generate sustainable economic recoveries from downturns. However, with economies and financial markets in freefall during the crisis despite a cut in interest rates to effectively zero, policymakers in some advanced economies launched a major new tool called quantitative easing (QE). This involved central banks purchasing huge amounts of financial assets.

This book offers a thorough and perspicacious analysis of QE, which has become a recovery method of last resort. Whilst it was successful in averting another Great Depression and stimulating growth, it remains controversial and continues to promote widespread debate in economics, financial, and political-economy circles. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand central banking in the national economy.

Germany’s public savings banks – Sparkassen – are a remarkable and puzzling phenomena. No other advanced industrial country relies as heavily on such small, public financial institutions to fuel its economy and how is it that such small institutions can drive one of the biggest and most successful economies in the world?

In theory, their diminutive size should hinder their ability to function in an environment where they compete with the capital and muscle of major international banks. Yet at the height of the financial crisis, when other banks drastically reduced lending, new loans made by Sparkassen increased as they continued to provide liquidity and lend to start-up firms. How have they managed to survive the economic turmoil and global pressures of the last few decades? What has enabled them to stay at the heart of the German economy? In a period of neoliberal “too-big-to-fail” thinking, how have these relics of an ordoliberal past managed to flourish?

Mark Cassell answers these and many other questions in his exploration of the unique entity that is Germany’s public savings bank system and the lessons it offers to banking systems worldwide.

Banks have been at the heart of economic activity for centuries, but since the 2008 financial crisis scrutiny of their activities and regulation of their actions has become the focus of fervent academic, policy and political activity. This focus takes for granted the existence and nature of banks.

In Regulating Banks, Andrew Whitworth looks one stage deeper to question what a bank really is, and what the implications of that are. He argues that the institutional form of a bank represents the political compromise of a specific time and place - and can therefore change. This has implications for financial stability. Far from creating stability, he argues, the regulatory impulse of policy-makers inevitably leads to greater financial instability.

Whitworth examines the postwar period of UK banking to show how regulation influences the nature of banks as much as their behaviour. Regulation, by changing the nature of what is regulated, encourages banks and other actors over time to alter their behaviour, which leads to future boom and bust cycles. These cycles then require further regulation to rein in the disruption their new pattern of behaviour inevitably instigates.

Regulating Banks reveals the cyclical nature of banking regulation, the inherent mismatch between political impulses and market reactions, and the price banks, banking and society pay for such instability.

Banks have been at the heart of economic activity for centuries, but since the 2008 financial crisis scrutiny of their activities and regulation of their actions has become the focus of fervent academic, policy and political activity. This focus takes for granted the existence and nature of banks.

In Regulating Banks, Andrew Whitworth looks one stage deeper to question what a bank really is, and what the implications of that are. He argues that the institutional form of a bank represents the political compromise of a specific time and place - and can therefore change. This has implications for financial stability. Far from creating stability, he argues, the regulatory impulse of policy-makers inevitably leads to greater financial instability.

Whitworth examines the postwar period of UK banking to show how regulation influences the nature of banks as much as their behaviour. Regulation, by changing the nature of what is regulated, encourages banks and other actors over time to alter their behaviour, which leads to future boom and bust cycles. These cycles then require further regulation to rein in the disruption their new pattern of behaviour inevitably instigates.

Regulating Banks reveals the cyclical nature of banking regulation, the inherent mismatch between political impulses and market reactions, and the price banks, banking and society pay for such instability.

This clear and rigorous examination of the international efforts to combat the financing of terrorism is suitable for a range of courses in international relations, politics and global political economy. It provides a comprehensive examination of the post-9/11 efforts to counter financial support for terrorist actors, including the more recent challenges of non-cash payment technologies as well as how to combat the financing of terrorism in regimes where territories and populations are controlled, as in the case of Islamic State.

This clear and rigorous examination of the international efforts to combat the financing of terrorism is suitable for a range of courses in international relations, politics and global political economy. It provides a comprehensive examination of the post-9/11 efforts to counter financial support for terrorist actors, including the more recent challenges of non-cash payment technologies as well as how to combat the financing of terrorism in regimes where territories and populations are controlled, as in the case of Islamic State.

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) assess the creditworthiness of debt issuers on financial markets. They are private companies and the ratings they issue are judgements about the prospect of repayment of debt by an issuer in time and in full. A rating is not an investment recommendation, but it is an opinion about the creditworthiness of a financial product or an issuing bank, government, supra- or sub-national institution.

In recent years CRAs have gained an authority in bond markets that far surpasses their original design. The financial crisis of 2008 thrust the CRAs into the spotlight as their highly rated financial products turned out to be toxic assets. CRAs were blamed not only for their excessively optimistic ratings, but also for their complicity in creating them.

This short book introduces and explores the complex world of the credit rating industry: how it works, how it has evolved, the role it played in the financial crisis, and how it is regulated. Giulia Mennillo shows, as constitutive actors of global financial capitalism, CRAs have a social and political relevance that reaches well beyond finance into areas of transport, infrastructure, education and health and their impact is emblematic of the increasing financialization of our world.