"The financial crisis of 2008 prompted a renewed critical interest in the moral limits and the sense of justice inherent in the market economy. But while the valuable pursuits of political theorists have enabled them to speak more directly to the economic dimension of our lives, they only rarely touch on the political roots of the central institution of all market economies-money. In The Currency of Politics, political theorist Stefan Eich responds...

It's often taken for granted that America needs a strong dollar. When the value of the U.S. dollar is strong relative to other currencies, it becomes attractive to investors and allows Americans to buy foreign goods and services cheaply. But in times of recession, is the United States better off with a weak dollar that stimulates U.S. manufacturing by making our goods cheaper and more competitive abroad? Or will the loss of purchasing power and currency...

“Bitcoin poses the right question, but gives the wrong answer,” write Luca Fantacci and Massimo Amato in this lucid and highly original treatment of the cryptocurrency phenomenon. A Fistful of Bitcoins uncovers the paradoxes of the first “digital cash” to achieve global attention: a disruptive payment infrastructure married to a dangerous and deflationary monetary system. From the cryptographic protocols to the quasi-religious ideologies and...

"Our global economy faces unprecedented challenges in the next few months. But whether we sink or swim depends on how prepared we are--and what we do now to thwart the coming collapse"--

"Former Federal Reserve Chair Ben S. Bernanke helps readers understand how the Federal Reserve, the steward of U.S. monetary policy, got to where it is today, what it has learned from the diverse challenges it has faced, and how it may evolve in the future"--

"A fascinating behind-the-scenes account of misguided government policies and corruption, which along with an unregulated shadow banking system, led to the 2008 financial crisis and may be leading us to a new crisis. Written by two bank executives with firsthand experience of several financial crises, Nothing is Too Big to Fail holds a stiff warning about the future of finance and social justice-revealing how the US government's fiscal and monetary...

For more than two years, Europe has teetered on the edge of an economic precipice-one of the factors that has pushed Britain back into recession. How exactly did Europe get itself into the current financial mess? Talking to historians, economists and politicians, BBC business editor Robert Peston takes a long view of the euro-from Churchill's vision of a United States of Europe to the bail-outs of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland. Britain, with its vast...

Chronicles the tumultuous era and remarkable personalities that created the Federal Reserve, tracing the financial panic and widespread distrust of bankers that prompted the landmark 1913 Federal Reserve Act and launched America's first steps onto the world financial stage.

In 1776 the United States government started out on a shoestring and quickly went bankrupt fighting its War of Independence against Britain. At the war's end, the national government owed tremendous sums to foreign creditors and its own citizens. But lacking the power to tax, it had no means to repay them. The Founders and Finance is the first book to tell the story of how foreign-born financial specialists--immigrants--solved the fiscal crisis and...

In 1954 relying on "automatic stabilizers," President Dwight Eisenhower withheld raising taxes in order to encourage consumer spending. In the 1960s, newly elected John F. Kennedy and economic advisor Walter Heller pushed Congress to approve a $12 billion tax cut stimulus. The Employment Act of 1946 was the first time that government tried to employ fiscal policy. But, by 2010 economists disagreed about whether fiscal policy was dead, as they argued...