Download or read book Economy of Words written by Douglas R. Holmes and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-12-09 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Markets are artifacts of language—so Douglas R. Holmes argues in this deeply researched look at central banks and the people who run them. Working at the intersection of anthropology, linguistics, and economics, he shows how central bankers have been engaging in communicative experiments that predate the financial crisis and continue to be refined amid its unfolding turmoil—experiments that do not merely describe the economy, but actually create its distinctive features. Holmes examines the New York District Branch of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, and the Bank of England, among others, and shows how officials there have created a new monetary regime that relies on collaboration with the public to achieve the ends of monetary policy. Central bankers, Holmes argues, have shifted the conceptual anchor of monetary affairs away from standards such as gold or fixed exchange rates and toward an evolving relationship with the public, one rooted in sentiments and expectations. Going behind closed doors to reveal the intellectual world of central banks,Economy of Words offers provocative new insights into the way our economic circumstances are conceptualized and ultimately managed.

Download or read book Challenges for Central Banking written by Anthony Santomero and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-01-21 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It may be possible to claim that, generally speaking, central banks around the world have never before held such a central and well-respected position in their respective countries as they hold now. Their tasks seem to be reasona bly well defined and the mandate given to them to guarantee price stability has so far worked more successfully than was perhaps expected. Inflation is lower than it has been for a long time. One central bank after the other has been given a position independent of normal party political processes. Re search concerning monetary policy and other topics of relevance for central banking has made good progress during the past decade. Much of the mys tique that has typically surrounded the internal work and decision-making of central banks has gradually disappeared. Instead, openness and transparency have become the key words of the day. The communication channels of central banks; speeches, inflation reports, minutes of meetings, etc. receive considerable attention and often give rise to headlines in the media. The en vironment in which central banks work and act today has thus undergone changes that in my view are very positive. However, we should always be on our guard against complacency. It would be most dangerous for central bankers today to sit back and relax in the belief that all of the important problems have been resolved and need no further consideration. Unless central bankers remain constantly alert and vigilant, their policy-making can easily deteriorate.

Download or read book The Institutional Structure of Macroprudential Policy in the UK written by Kosmas Kaprinis and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-06-28 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Macroprudential policy (MPP) has been one of the major initiatives in the post-2008 crisis restructuring of financial regulation. Under the macroprudential mandate, the regulator monitors and judiciously controls systemic risk in the financial system, in an attempt to minimise the probability and severity of a future financial crisis. The book reveals why MPP authorities are rightfully at the centre of a highly sensitive policy debate, as MPP necessitates the allocation of significant regulatory power to technocrats, while the highly technical nature of MPP makes policy evaluation challenging. Specific issues examined include: the importance of financial stability as a public policy goal; the political economy issues stemming from the delegation of MPP to an independent authority; and the definition of accountability in the context of MPP. Focusing on a case study on the Financial Policy Committee of the Bank of England, the macroprudential authority in the UK, the book develops the normative grounds to justify the need for accountability in the conduct of MPP, while also formulating the necessary institutional framework to ensure the accountability of MPP authorities.

Download or read book Stories of Capitalism written by Stefan Leins and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-01-29 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The financial crisis and the recession that followed caught many people off guard, including experts in the financial sector whose jobs involve predicting market fluctuations. Financial analysis offices in most international banks are supposed to forecast the rise or fall of stock prices, the success or failure of investment products, and even the growth or decline of entire national economies. And yet their predictions are heavily disputed. How do they make their forecasts—and do those forecasts have any actual value? Building on recent developments in the social studies of finance, Stories of Capitalism provides the first ethnography of financial analysis. Drawing on two years of fieldwork in a Swiss bank, Stefan Leins argues that financial analysts construct stories of possible economic futures, presenting them as coherent and grounded in expert research and analysis. In so doing, they establish a role for themselves—not necessarily by laying bare empirically verifiable trends but rather by presenting the market as something that makes sense and is worth investing in. Stories of Capitalism is a nuanced look at how banks continue to boost investment—even in unstable markets—and a rare insider’s look into the often opaque financial practices that shape the global economy.

Download or read book Central Banks in Organizational Networks written by Christoph F-D. Wu and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-07-13 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This inter-disciplinary and wide-ranging study unravels the social processes of decision-making at the interface of central banks and financial market participants, and thereby raises important questions about responsible central bank governance and its obligations to stakeholders in society. The book challenges commonly held assumptions on how central banking works and critically assesses unconventional monetary policy and its underlying theoretical tenets. Drawing from rich, multi-sited fieldwork and data collection, this research monograph offers an in-depth look into the financial market practices around the quantitative easing programmes of the European Central Bank and focuses on the uneasy role of modern central banks as active market participants. The author introduces concepts from social network theory and develops a novel method to study organisational networks in the context of financial markets. An analysis of the European Central Bank’s social, organisational and financial networks is sketched over the course of multiple chapters. The concluding chapters dive into documentary analysis and the extensive material from qualitative interviews with senior investment professionals about the strategies and adaptive processes around the lived experience of quantitative easing. The winner of the British Sociological Association’s prestigious Philip Abrams Memorial Prize, this book is a vital resource for social scientists researching organisations in financial markets, providing theory, concepts, empirical data and practical implications. It will be of interest to academics and graduate students in economics, sociology and management/organisation studies, as well as practitioners at central banks and in asset management.

Download or read book Making a Modern Central Bank written by Harold James and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making a Modern Central Bank examines a revolution in monetary and economic policy. This authoritative guide explores how the Bank of England shifted its traditional mechanisms to accommodate a newly internationalized financial and economic system. The Bank's transformation into a modern inflation-targeting independent central bank allowed it to focus on a precisely defined task of monetary management, ensuring price stability. The reframing of the task of central banks, however, left them increasingly vulnerable to financial crisis. James vividly outlines and discusses significant historical developments in UK monetary policy, and his knowledge of modern European history adds rich context to archival research on the Bank of England's internal documents. A worthy continuation of the previous official histories of the Bank of England, this book also reckons with contemporary issues, shedding light on the origins of growing backlash against globalization and the European Union.

Download or read book Uncertain Futures written by Jens Beckert and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncertain Futures considers how economic actors visualize the future and decide how to act in conditions of radical uncertainty. It starts from the premise that dynamic capitalist economies are characterized by relentless innovation and novelty and hence exhibit an indeterminacy that cannot be reduced to measurable risk. The organizing question then becomes how economic actors form expectations and make decisions despite the uncertainty they face. This edited volume lays the foundations for a new model of economic reasoning by showing how, in conditions of uncertainty, economic actors combine calculation with imaginaries and narratives to form fictional expectations that coordinate action and provide the confidence to act. It draws on groundbreaking research in economic sociology, economics, anthropology, and psychology to present theoretically grounded empirical case studies. These demonstrate how grand narratives, central bank forward guidance, economic forecasts, finance models, business plans, visions of technological futures, and new era stories influence behaviour and become instruments of power in markets and societies. The market impact of shared calculative devices, social narratives, and contingent imaginaries underlines the rationale for a new form of narrative economics.

Download or read book Blind Spots in the Spotlight written by Raluca Iacob and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-06-17 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings under a magnifying glass a little explored, but significant topic - the communications changes of the National Bank of Romania after 2008. Given the similarities and differences between central banks’ mechanisms and practices adopted, its applicability and impact for other actors are incontestable. The research incorporates valuable details on how the National Bank of Romania’s communication changed during the Great Recession of 2008, as well as insightful data about the way in which different categories of public and media perceived this change. The timeliness and significance of this research are noticeable as the central banks already entered a new era of communication challenges triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and recently by the Russia – Ukraine war. Lessons from the past can contribute to what researchers name the second revolution in communication, focusing on opening the central banks to the public and regaining trust, especially in such a difficult period.

Download or read book Research Handbook on Central Banking written by Peter Conti-Brown and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central banks occupy a unique space in their national governments and in the global economy. The study of central banking however, has too often been dominated by an abstract theoretical approach that fails to grasp central banks’ institutional nuances. This comprehensive and insightful Handbook, takes a wider angle on central banks and central banking, focusing on the institutions of central banking. By 'institutions', Peter Conti-Brown and Rosa Lastra refer to the laws, traditions, norms, and rules used to structure central bank organisations. The Research Handbook on Central Banking’s institutional approach is one of the most interdisciplinary efforts to consider its topic, and includes chapters from leading and rising central bankers, economists, lawyers, legal scholars, political scientists, historians, and others.

Download or read book Crafting Consensus written by Nicole Baerg and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-08-12 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world dependent on the constant sharing of information, central bankers increasingly communicate their policies to the mass public. Central bank communications are drafted in monetary policy committee meetings composed of policymakers with differing interests. Despite their differences, committee members must come together, write, and agree to an official policy statement. Once released to the public, central bank communications then affect citizens' actions and ultimately, the economy. But how exactly does this work? In Crafting Consensus, Nicole Baerg explains how the transparency of central bank communication depends on the configuration of committee members' preferences. Baerg argues that monetary policy committees composed of members with differing preferences over inflation are better suited to communicating precise information with the public. These diverse committees produce central bank statements of higher quality and less uncertainty than those from more homogeneous committees. Additionally, she argues that higher quality statements more effectively shape individuals' inflation expectations and move the economy in ways that policymakers intend. Baerg demonstrates that central bankers are not impartial technocrats and that their preferences and the institutional rules where they work matter for understanding the politics of monetary policy and variations in economic performance over time. Conducting empirical analysis from historical archival data, textual analysis, machine-learning, survey experiments, and cross-sectional time-series data, Crafting Consensus offers a new theory of committee decision making and a battery of empirical tests to provide a rich understanding of modern-day central banking.

Download or read book Central Banks as Economic Institutions written by Jean-Philippe Touffut and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theories and practices in central banking and monetary policy have changed radically over recent decades with independence and inflation targeting as the new keywords. This book offers interesting perspectives on the drivers of this development and its implication. It addresses contemporary questions on accountability, transparency and objectives for monetary policy as well as current policy problems related to globalization and financial imbalances. The book is topical, insightful and well written a must for everybody with an interest in central banking and monetary policy. Torben M. Andersen, University of Aarhus, Denmark The number of central banks in the world is approaching 180, a tenfold increase since the beginning of the twentieth century. What lies behind the spread of this economic institution? What underlying process has brought central banks to hold such a key role in economic life today? This book examines from a transatlantic perspective how the central bank has become the bank of banks. Thirteen distinguished economists and central bankers have been brought together to evaluate how central banks work, arrive at their policies, choose their instruments and gauge their success in managing economies, both in times of crisis and periods of growth. Central banks have gained greater independence from government control over the last 20 years. This widespread trend throws up new questions regarding the foundations, prerogatives and future of this economic institution. This book provides a better understanding of the current financial crisis through the in-depth study of the central bank. Researchers in the fields of monetary theory, monetary policy and central banking will find this volume of great interest. It will also appeal to students of economics, political economy, banking and finance, as well as economists, academics, and public policy advisers and analysts.

Download or read book The Rise of Central Banks written by Leon Wansleben and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-10 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold history of the rise of central banks, showing how institutions designed to steady the ship of global finance have instead become as destabilizing as they are dominant. While central banks have gained remarkable influence over the past fifty years, promising more stability, global finance has gone from crisis to crisis. How do we explain this development? Drawing on original sources ignored in previous research, The Rise of Central Banks offers a groundbreaking account of the origins and consequences of central banks’ increasing clout over economic policy. Many commentators argue that ideas drove change, indicating a shift in the 1970s from Keynesianism to monetarism, concerned with controlling inflation. Others point to the stagflation crises, which put capitalists and workers at loggerheads. Capitalists won, the story goes, then pushed deregulation and disinflation by redistributing power from elected governments to markets and central banks. Both approaches are helpful, but they share a weakness. Abstracting from the evolving practices of central banking, they provide inaccurate accounts of recent policy changes and fail to explain how we arrived at the current era of easy money and excessive finance. By comparing developments in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Switzerland, Leon Wansleben finds that central bankers’ own policy innovations were an important ingredient of change. These innovations allowed central bankers to use privileged relationships with expanding financial markets to govern the economy. But by relying on markets, central banks fostered excessive credit growth and cultivated an unsustainable version of capitalism. Through extensive archival work and numerous interviews, Wansleben sheds new light on the agency of bureaucrats and calls upon society and elected leaders to direct these actors’ efforts to more progressive goals.

Download or read book Trust Power and Public Relations in Financial Markets written by Clea Bourne and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The public relations profession positions itself as expert in building trust throughout global markets, particularly after crisis strikes. Successive crises have tainted financial markets in recent years. Calls to restore trust in finance have been particularly pressing, given trust’s crucial role as lubricant in global financial engines. Nonetheless, years after the global financial crisis, trust in financial markets remains both tenuous and controversial. This book explores PR in financial markets, posing a fundamental question about PR professionals as would-be ‘trust strategists’. If PR promotes its expertise in building and restoring trust, how can it ignore its potential role in losing trust in the first place? Drawing on examples from state finance, international lending agencies, trade bodies, financial institutions and consumer groups in mature and emerging financial centres, this book explores the wide-ranging role of PR in financial markets, including: State finance and debt capital markets Investor relations, M&A and IPOs Corporate communications for financial institutions Product promotion and consumer finance Financial trade associations and lobbying Consumerism and financial activism. Far reaching and challenging, this innovative book will be essential reading for researchers, advanced students and professionals in PR, communication and finance.

Download or read book Designs and Anthropologies written by Keith M. Murphy and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chapters in this captivating volume demonstrate the importance and power of design and the ubiquitous and forceful effects it has on human life within the study of anthropology. The scholars explore the interactions between anthropology and design through a cross-disciplinary approach, and while their approaches vary in how they specifically consider design, they are all centered around the design-and-anthropology relationship. The chapters look at anthropology for design, in which anthropological methods and concepts are mobilized in the design process; anthropology of design, in which design is positioned as an object of ethnographic inquiry and critique; and design for anthropology, in which anthropologists borrow concepts and practices from design to enhance traditional ethnographic forms. Collectively, the chapters argue that bringing design and anthropology together can transform both fields in more than one way and that to tease out the implications of using design to reimagine ethnography—and of using ethnography to reimagine design—we need to consider the historical specificity of their entanglements.

Download or read book Banking on Words written by Arjun Appadurai and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this short but ambitious book, Arjun Appadurai argues that the failure of the financial system in 2007-08 in the United States was primarily a failure of language. This argument does not deny that greed, ignorance, weak regulation, and irresponsible risk-taking were important factors in the collapse. But the new role of language in the marketplace, for Appadurai, is the condition of possibility for all these more easily identifiable flaws. Attempts to rectify the social pathologies of contemporary finance must address that failure of language. "Banking on Words "focuses on derivatives as the distinctive innovation of our financial era. Derivatives are written promises concerning the uncertain future prices of financial assets and the substance of these contracts is expressed in terms of money. The recent failure of derivatives markets was systematic and should be understood as failed promises. While it is well-known that derivatives pile risk on risk with little basis in real production and trade, Appadurai reveals this process in a fresh light from which some policy conclusions may be drawn. While critical of derivative finance s present social infrastructure and supporting ideology, Appadurai acknowledges its capacity for creating vast new forms of wealth and asks the crucial question: if we want access to that wealth, what kind of social arrangements would we need to make sure that it benefits all of society rather than reinforcing a system that benefits the few who are already well off? His bold answer involves not the repair of the force of promises but rather the repair and reconstruction of the idea of the individual to enable new sorts of solidarity between dividuals, agents whose very partiality may allow for new aggregations of aspiration, interest and affiliation. This amounts to nothing less than a new ideology of sociality."

Download or read book Collaborative Anthropology Today written by Dominic Boyer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As multisited research has become mainstream in anthropology, collaboration has gained new relevance and traction as a critical infrastructure of both fieldwork and theory, enabling more ambitious research designs, forms of communication, and analysis. Collaborative Anthropology Today is the outcome of a 2017 workshop held at the Center for Ethnography, University of California, Irvine. This book is the latest in a trilogy that includes Fieldwork Is Not What It Used to Be and Theory Can Be More Than It Used to Be. Dominic Boyer and George E. Marcus assemble several notable ventures in collaborative anthropology and put them in dialogue with one another as a way of exploring the recent surge of interest in creating new kinds of ethnographic and theoretical partnerships, especially in the domains of art, media, and information. Contributors highlight projects in which collaboration has generated new possibilities of expression and conceptualizations of anthropological research, as well as prototypes that may be of use to others contemplating their own experimental collaborative ventures.

Download or read book Power and Politics in the Media written by Robert X. Browning and published by Purdue University Press. This book was released on 2023-12-15 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Power and Politics in the Media: The Year in C-SPAN Archives Research, Volume 9 features articles from multiple disciplines that use the C-SPAN Video Library to explore recent controversies in American politics. Topics covered include Supreme Court nominations, Supreme Court oral arguments, rhetoric on disasters and COVID-19, and the effect of clothing on the approval of women in power. What unites these topics is the unique use of the video record of C-SPAN to explore the intersections of politics, power, rhetoric, and the media in the contemporary United States. Written in accessible prose, this volume showcases some of the most pressing issues today in a variety of political and communication issues while demonstrating video research methodologies.