Financialization has become the go-to term for scholars grappling with the growth of finance. This Handbook offers the first comprehensive survey of the scholarship on financialization, connecting finance with changes in politics, technology, culture, society and the economy.It takes stock of the diverse avenues of research that comprise financialization studies and the contributions they have made to understanding the changes in contemporary societies driven by the rise of finance...

According to the author, rather than alleviating poverty, microfinance financialises poverty. By indebting poor people in the Global South, it drives financial expansion and opens new lands of opportunity for the crisis-ridden global capital markets. This book raises fundamental concerns about this widely-celebrated tool for social development.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Freedom of religion and belief is crucial to any sustainable development process, yet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) pay little attention to religious inequalities.This book offers a comprehensive overview of how efforts to achieve SDGs can be enhanced by paying greater attention to freedom of religion and belief. In particular, it illustrates how poverty is often a direct result of religious prejudice ...

How can we make religious equality a reality for those on the margins of society and politics? This book is about the individual and collective struggles of the religiously marginalised to be recognised and their inequalities, religious or otherwise, redressed. It is also about the efforts of civil society, governments, multilateral actors, and scholars to promote freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) whatever shape they take. The actors and contexts that feature in this book are as diverse...

It’s time to rewrite the rules—to curb the runaway flow of wealth to the top one percent, to restore security and opportunity for the middle class, and to foster stronger growth rooted in broadly shared prosperity.Inequality is a choice.The United States bills itself as the land of opportunity, a place where anyone can achieve success and a better life through hard work and determination. But the facts tell a different story—the U.S. today lags behind most ...

Since its emergence in the 1970s, microfinance has risen to become one of the most high-profile policies to address poverty in developing and transition countries. It is beloved of rock stars, movie stars, royalty, high-profile politicians and 'troubleshooting' economists.In this provocative and controversial analysis, Milford Bateman reveals that microfinance doesn't actually work. In fact, the case for it has been largely built on hype, on egregious half-truths and – latterly – o...

Mainstream textbooks present economics as an objective science free from value judgements; that settles disputes by testing hypotheses; that applies a pre-determined body of principles; and contains policy prescriptions supported by a consensus of professional opinion. The Economics Anti-Textbook argues that this is a myth - one which is not only dangerously misleading but also bland and boring. It challenges the mainstream textbooks' assumptions, arguments, models and evidence. It puts th...

Libertarian principles seem basic enough -- keep government out of boardrooms, bedrooms, and wallets, and let markets work the way they should. But what reasoning justifies those stances, and how can they be elucidated clearly and applied consistently? In Libertarianism, from A to Z, acclaimed Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron sets the record straight with a dictionary that takes the reader beyond the mere surface of libertarian thought to reveal the philosophy's underlying and comp...

EconoPower will provide you with a firm understanding of the influence of modern economics and how it can be used to improve the world we live in. It offers practical advice on numerous personal financial matters—earning, saving, investing, and retiring—based on the breakthrough contributions of behavioral economists. And it looks at how economists are working successfully on issues such as public education, crime, and global warming. EconoPower also examines how a new ec...

• Why is productivity higher in cities? • Does urbanization cause growth or does growth cause urbanization? • Do countries achieve rapid growth or high incomes without urbanization? • How can policy makers reap the benefits of urbanization without paying too high a cost? • Does supporting urbanization imply neglecting rural areas? • Why do so few governments welcome urbanization? • What should governments do to improve housing conditions in cities as they urbanize? • Are innovations in housin...

China's economic growth has transformed the country from one of the poorest in the world to its second largest economy. Understanding the drivers of growth remains elusive as the country is affected by both its transition from central planning and the challenges of a developing country. This book examines the main themes of growth, offering micro level evidence to shed light on the macro drivers of the economy. It also focuses on law and informal institutions of the economy to highlight th...

We are heading towards Thomas Piketty’s predicted steady state of wealth being worth six times national income. We are not immune to his prognosis of a return to Victorian-style levels of inequality.The most recent NBR Rich List has revealed the biggest proportional increase in wealth since the list first appeared in 1986. But what do these figures mean and what else do we know about New Zealand’s fortunes? Following his groundbreaking work on income inequality, Max Rashbrooke examines how...