By Avinash Persaud
June 19, 2023
How to unblock green investment in developing countries
Developing-country governments cannot fund the green transformation to the scale or pace the world needs – but allaying currency risk fears could change the game.
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How to Unblock Green Investment in Developing Countries”
Author: Lily Ginsburg
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Live Zoom Panel - Wednesday, April 19, 11 am - 12 pm ET
Reminder: Sociological Perspectives on the Bank Failures of 2023
Following the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, as well as the forced acquisition of Credit Suisse, banks are back in the headlines. This panel considers recent events in light of the flowering of sociological research since the
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Reminder: Sociological Perspectives on the Bank Failures of 2023”
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New York Times Podcast: A Radical Way of Thinking About Money with Morgan Ricks
We discuss what lessons banking regulators missed from the Great Recession; the need to panic-proof the entire financial system; the government’s role in insuring or backstopping deposits; what it would mean for the government to start treating money
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New York Times Podcast: A Radical Way of Thinking About Money with Morgan Ricks”
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Jay Powell’s Federal Reserve: Protection for Bankers, Pain for Everyone Else
David Stein and Nathan Tankus
Continuing interest rate hikes as the Black unemployment rate starts to tick up reveal a misunderstanding of monetary policy history.
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Jay Powell’s Federal Reserve: Protection for Bankers, Pain for Everyone Else”
Announcement
Virtual Teach-In: The Failure of Silicon Valley Bank
Nadav Orian Peer, Associate Professor, Colorado Law, and Just Money Editor - March 15, 2023
Recording Available: "Virtual Teach-In: The Failure of Silicon Valley Bank."
JustMoney editor Nadav Orian Peer discussed the conditions that led to SVB's failure; policy response by regulators; and broader economic context.
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Virtual Teach-In: The Failure of Silicon Valley Bank”
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How a Firm Profiting From Deposit Insurance Caps Is Lobbying to Keep Them
How a Firm Profiting From Deposit Insurance Caps Is Lobbying to Keep Them
A company called IntraFi offers two products that allow large depositors to spread their money among a network of hundreds of banks. If deposit insurance were uncapped, their business model would be worthless. It’s a full-court press to maintain a lucrative status quo.
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How a Firm Profiting From Deposit Insurance Caps Is Lobbying to Keep Them”
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How are Banks and the Fed Linked? Teaching Key Concepts Today
Jane Ihrig, Gretchen Weinbach & Scott Wolla, Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC, USA
This article walks through the roles of banks and the Federal Reserve (the Fed) in the financial system and describes the key linkages between the two, using current concepts.
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How are Banks and the Fed Linked? Teaching Key Concepts Today”
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Money as an Instrument for Justice
Sandeep Vaheesan, Open Markets Institute
For nearly a century, the private view of money has prevailed. But the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 offers a glimpse of money as a public instrument. Is this law the breach in the dam of scarce, private money?
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Money as an Instrument for Justice”
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Sellers’ Inflation, Profits and Conflict: Why can Large Firms Hike Prices in an Emergency?
Isabella M. Weber and Evan Wasner, University of Massachusetts Amherst
The US COVID-19 inflation is predominantly a sellers’ inflation that derives from the ability of firms with market power to hike prices. Policy should aim to contain price hikes at the impulse stage to prevent inflation from the onset.
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Sellers’ Inflation, Profits and Conflict: Why can Large Firms Hike Prices in an Emergency?”
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From Cannabis to Crypto: Federal Reserve Discretion in Payments
Julie Andersen Hill, University of Alabama - School of Law
This article shows that while the Federal Reserve has some discretion over the payments it processes and terms under which it offers it payments services, the Fed’s discretion is not so broad as to allow it to reject access requests from legally eligible banks. If the Fed wants to exclude banks, it should ask Congress to change the law.
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From Cannabis to Crypto: Federal Reserve Discretion in Payments”
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Food, Money & Democracy: Cultivating Collective Provisioning for Resilient & Equitable Communities of Work
Benjamin C. Wilson, Taylor Reid & Max Sussman
Without reliable access to monetary resources, collective provisioning systems are vulnerable to financial crisis and collapse. Alleviating these vulnerabilities requires that monetary systems adopt collective coordination principles. Accordingly, this paper presents small and medium-scale monetary experiments that use food systems as a way to build community capacity.
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Food, Money & Democracy: Cultivating Collective Provisioning for Resilient & Equitable Communities of Work”
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Tax Policy for a Climate in Crisis
Martha McCluskey, University at Buffalo, State University of New York
How can a Law and Political Economy approach guide the power of taxation toward democracy, justice, and a livable planet? Taxation should be viewed as one of several interrelated strategies for mobilizing the public power of money to re-orient both economy and the state.
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Tax Policy for a Climate in Crisis”
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Consumer Protection after Consumer Sovereignty
Luke Herrine, University of Alabama School of Law
The central legal focus of the Article is the prohibition on “unfair acts or practices” shared by many federal and state agencies with consumer protection jurisdiction. The descriptive and normative arguments of this Article explain why it is now at the center of the action—and why that should be welcomed.
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Consumer Protection after Consumer Sovereignty”
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The Work of Retirement
Jeffrey Sklansky, University of Illinois at Chicago
The essay points to a fertile field for further study: as retirees have increasingly relied on professional asset managers and caregivers, the finance and health sectors have undergone converging crises over fiduciary duty and elder care, posing parallel challenges for organized labor.
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The Work of Retirement”
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The ‘climate shift’ in central banks: how field arbitrageurs paved the way for climate stress testing
Stine Quorning, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
The article contributes to the study of the political economy of central banks, investigating how discussions of climate change entered central banks and highlighting an underexplored form of ‘infrastructural entanglement’ between finance, the state bureaucracy, and central banks.
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The ‘climate shift’ in central banks: how field arbitrageurs paved the way for climate stress testing”
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Caught between Frontstage and Backstage: The Failure of the Federal Reserve to Halt Rule Evasion in the Financial Crisis of 1974
Pierre-Christian Fink, Harvard University and Hebrew University Jerusalem
Based on original archival evidence from the financial crisis of 1974, this article discusses regulators who publicly pretend to stay within their mandate, which renders re-regulation of rule evasion less likely. The finding contributes a new explanation for why periods of instability so rarely lead to change.
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Caught between Frontstage and Backstage: The Failure of the Federal Reserve to Halt Rule Evasion in the Financial Crisis of 1974”
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The Bank of the People, 1835-1840: Law and Money in Upper Canada
Dan Rohde, SJD Harvard Law School
This article provides a legal-political history of that early contest over Canadian money and sovereignty, and explores the way in which Upper Canada’s Reformers put forth a critique of bank-issued money that remains relevant today.
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The Bank of the People, 1835-1840: Law and Money in Upper Canada”
Announcement
New Book by Joseph Vogl
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New Book by Joseph Vogl”
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Risk, Discretion, and Bank Supervision
Peter Conti-Brown (University of Pennsylvania) and Sean Vanatta (University of Glasgow)
Using the rich history of supervision in the United States from the antebellum period to the present, this article presents a theoretical conception of supervision as the space where bankers and the government engage each other in sometimes cooperative, sometimes contentious disputes with substantial influence on the direction of financial and economic policy.
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Risk, Discretion, and Bank Supervision”
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Beyond market neutrality? Central banks and the problem of climate change
Matthias Thiemann (Sciences Po), Tim Büttner, and Oliver Kessler
The issue of climate change has altered the self-understanding of central bankers and driven them towards a more active stance where they acknowledge that central bankers shape and make, and not only ‘mirror’, market forces.
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Beyond market neutrality? Central banks and the problem of climate change”
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New Symposium on “Networks, Platforms, and Utilities” by Ricks, Sitaraman, Welton, and Menand
Morgan Ricks, Ganesh Sitaraman, Shelley Welton, and Lev Menand
Networks, Platforms, and Utilities (NPU) is the first entirely new casebook integrating NPU law in a quarter century—and the first with some temporal distance from the deregulatory movement of the late twentieth century. The book thus contributes to larger intellectual shifts in the academy and public policy.
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New Symposium on “Networks, Platforms, and Utilities” by Ricks, Sitaraman, Welton, and Menand”
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Connected Lending of Last Resort
Kris James Mitchener, Santa Clara University, and Eric Monnet, Paris School of Economics
Utilizing a novel, hand-collected historical daily dataset on loans to commercial banks, we analyze how personal connections matter for lending of last resort, highlighting the importance of governance for this core function of central banks.
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Connected Lending of Last Resort”
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Why Lancashire? Banking As the Spark That Set Off Industrialization
Carolyn Sissoko, University of the West of England
The paper argues that a change in the Bank of England’s commercial discount policy at the end of the Seven Years’ War promoted the growth of banking.
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Why Lancashire? Banking As the Spark That Set Off Industrialization”
Announcement
New Book Edited by Benjamin Wilson
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New Book Edited by Benjamin Wilson”
Announcement
The Banking & Finance Law Review (BFLR) is Hiring a Fintech Fellow!
The Banking & Finance Law Review is pleased to announce the second annual FinTech Fellowship, which gives doctoral candidates insight into the editorial process of scholarly journal publication in this cutting-edge field of law. Application deadline May 1st, 2023.
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The Banking & Finance Law Review (BFLR) is Hiring a Fintech Fellow!”
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Reminder: Intersections of finance and society 2023 CFP closes May 1!
Reminder: Call for Papers for Intersections of finance and society 2023 will close on May 1st. Contributors are expressly invited to propose and debate existing and novel solutions for improving financial stability, expanding fintech inclusion, mitigating climate breakdown, and tackling the inequalities associated with financialisation.
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Reminder: Intersections of finance and society 2023 CFP closes May 1!”
Announcement
Finance and Society Network CFP: Intersections of finance and society 2023 in Brussels (September 14-15)
Call for Papers open for Intersections of finance and society 2023, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 14-15 September. Contributors are expressly invited to propose and debate existing and novel solutions for improving financial stability, expanding fintech inclusion, mitigating climate breakdown, and tackling the inequalities associated with financialisation.
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Finance and Society Network CFP: Intersections of finance and society 2023 in Brussels (September 14-15)”
Announcement
UNSW Sydney Law and Justice is Hiring a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
UNSW Sydney Law and Justice is Hiring a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, with an application deadline of February 13th, 2023.
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UNSW Sydney Law and Justice is Hiring a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow”
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Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics Volume 3, Number 2
Editorial Group, Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics
One possible reading of the current issue is that we invite readers to ponder historical hauntings of modern political economies, including "austerity haunting 'noncapitalist' contexts," "the history of money haunting modern-day understandings of central bank digital currencies," "colonialism haunting African development," and more.
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Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics Volume 3, Number 2”
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Paper Money of a ‘Peculiar Character’: The Notes of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1820-1870
Michael Ryan, International Bank Note Society
The Hudson's Bay Company issued promissory notes from 1820 to 1870 that served as paper money in the Red River Colony. These notes are a fascinating artefact of the fur trade, which played an important role in the earliest phase of European engagement with Canada and the US.
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Paper Money of a ‘Peculiar Character’: The Notes of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1820-1870”
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Navigating uncertainty in networks of social exchange: a relational event study of a community currency system
Jakob Hoffmann and Johannes Glückler, Heidelberg University
This article analyzes the structure of socially embedded exchange under uncertainty in the context of a community currency system in Germany.
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Navigating uncertainty in networks of social exchange: a relational event study of a community currency system”
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The Case Against the Debt Tax
Vijay Raghavan, Brooklyn Law School
This Article argues that the tax on cancelled debt is the product of broader political forces and not just the internal logic of tax, and it concludes by proposing changes to tax administration and the tax code that would sharply circumscribe the scope of the tax.
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The Case Against the Debt Tax”
Fall 2022 - Money, Sanctions and International Law
Sanctions and Decoupling After Neoliberalism
David Singh Grewal, UC Berkeley
We are once again in the awful position of testing the proposition that commercial integration among nations leads to peace. And, to the extent that it clearly does not, we are left wondering about how effective either monetary and economic sanctions can be—and, more broadly, what economic “decoupling” looks like in a post-neoliberal world.
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Sanctions and Decoupling After Neoliberalism”
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The Financialization of U.S. Public Pensions, 1945-1974
Sean Vanatta, University of Glasgow
This article examines a major transformation in public employee pension investment in the United States. Ultimately, financialization was not the product of a radical break or crisis in the 1970s, but was a continuous process in the post-World War II era, one initially pursued by state and local government officials in service of welfare liberalism.
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The Financialization of U.S. Public Pensions, 1945-1974”
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After the boom: Finance and society studies in the 2020s and beyond
Amin Samman, University of London
In this editorial, three overarching imperatives are explored: first, the need to keep a vigilant watch on the core institutions and logics of finance; second, the need to continue expanding and deepening the field; and third, the need to persist with difficult lines of questioning.
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After the boom: Finance and society studies in the 2020s and beyond”
Fall 2022 - Money, Sanctions and International Law
International Law and 21st Century Financial Warfare
Suzanne Katzenstein, Duke University; Stephen Park, University of Connecticut
Financial sanctions of the current scope and magnitude can no longer be relied upon to enforce international law in a manner that complies with it. Relying on international law to constrain the impacts of warfare—here, financial warfare—may also risk legitimizing its expanding use.
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International Law and 21st Century Financial Warfare”
Announcement
The Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project is Hiring an Academic Fellow
The Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project seeks to hire an Academic Fellow to play both a scholarly and organizational role, with an anticipated start date of July 1, 2023.
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The Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project is Hiring an Academic Fellow”
Announcement
Assistant Professor in Finance and Globalization at the University of California, Santa Barbara
The Department of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the level of Assistant Professor, with an anticipated start date of July 1, 2023. The Department is looking for individuals with expertise in Finance in relation to Globalization.
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Assistant Professor in Finance and Globalization at the University of California, Santa Barbara”
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Economics and Dishonesty
Prabhat Patnaik, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Economics is a subject where the ruling classes are forever trying to promote ideologically-motivated explanations in lieu of scientific ones.
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Economics and Dishonesty”
Announcement
New Casebook by Morgan Ricks, Ganesh Sitaraman, Shelley Welton, and Lev Menand
Networks, Platforms, and Utilities: Law and Policy
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New Casebook by Morgan Ricks, Ganesh Sitaraman, Shelley Welton, and Lev Menand”
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Special Issue from Journal of Cultural Economy: FinTech in Africa
Paul Langley, Durham University, and Daivi Rodima-Taylor, Boston University
By re-centering global social science research agendas and political debates on Africa, this special issue hopes to inspire further work and future political engagement with FinTech which doesn’t begin, by default, from developments and experiences in the Global West and East.
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Special Issue from Journal of Cultural Economy: FinTech in Africa”
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Introduction: The Structural Power of Finance Meets Financialization
Natalya Naqvi et. al., London School of Economics
The contributions to this special issue engage with how decades of financialization have transformed the basis of structural power toward alternative functions that have gone unnoticed in the existing literature. These include household and real estate lending that fuels consumption-led growth, concentration and expansion of financial institutions as tools of geo-economic strategy, financing current account deficits that facilitate global imbalances, and wealth preservation that bolsters inequality.
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Introduction: The Structural Power of Finance Meets Financialization”
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Special Issue from Economy and Society: Recentering Central Banks
Nathan Coombs, University of Edinburgh, and Matthias Thiemann, Sciences Po
This special issue argues that to make sense of the increased prominence of central banks after the 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic requires interrogating the sources of and limits to their governmental power.
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Special Issue from Economy and Society: Recentering Central Banks”
Announcement
New Book by Dave Elder-Vass
Inventing Value: The Social Construction of Monetary Worth
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New Book by Dave Elder-Vass”
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Financialization, Structural Power, and the Global Financial Crisis for Europe’s Core and Periphery
Nina Eichacker, University of Rhode Island
As Eurozone governments consider how to respond to crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic going forward, policies that more equitably support governments rescuing domestic financial actors should be considered in tandem with broader financial regulations of structurally important economic institutions.
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Financialization, Structural Power, and the Global Financial Crisis for Europe’s Core and Periphery”
Fall 2022 - Money, Sanctions and International Law
Are the West’s Sanctions on Russia Working?
Rawi Abdelal and Alexandra Vacroux, Harvard University
The question of whether sanctions on Russia in response to the war in Ukraine are “working” is vastly more complicated than has been acknowledged.
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Are the West’s Sanctions on Russia Working?”
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Uncomfortable knowledge in central banking: Economic expertise confronts the visibility dilemma
Jacqueline Best, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa
How do central bankers cope with the uncomfortable fact that there are significant limits to their expertise without losing authority?
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Uncomfortable knowledge in central banking: Economic expertise confronts the visibility dilemma”
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Finance and Society: Volume 9, Number 1 (2023) Out Now!
Finance and Society: Volume 9 Out Now!
The issue features a keynote essay by Janet Roitman on platform economies beyond the North-South divide. Research articles address climate change central banking, property valuation in Brazil, and the ‘Edges of the financial imagination.’ It is fully open-access!
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Finance and Society: Volume 9, Number 1 (2023) Out Now!”
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Capitalizing Africa – High finance from below
James Christopher Mizes and Kevin P. Donovan, Université Paris-Dauphine and University of Edinburgh
In this issue, our contributors explore new modes of popular and professional reasoning about finance in Africa by Africans, and their specific struggles over how to know, value and manage capital.
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Capitalizing Africa – High finance from below”