William Yonge and Simon Currie
To summarize and analyse four opinions issued in May and July 2017 by the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) concerning regulatory and supervisory arbitrage risks…
Abstract
Purpose
To summarize and analyse four opinions issued in May and July 2017 by the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) concerning regulatory and supervisory arbitrage risks that arise as a result of increased requests from financial market participants to relocate activities and functions in the EU27 following the UK’s decision to withdraw from the EU, and the expected regulatory response to those risks.
Design/methodology/approach
Discusses the possible relocation of financial firms, activities and functions following the UK’s decision to withdraw from EU; the resulting cross-sectoral regulatory and supervisory arbitrage risks that ESMA foresees; nine principles that ESMA enumerates to guide its regulatory response to those risks; some common themes that emerge from ESMA’s July Opinions; and the implications for UK firms and trading venues seeking to establish a presence in the EU 27.
Findings
ESMA foresees regulatory and arbitrage risks in Brexit and a potential “race to the bottom” as certain national regulators jostle for and grab UK market share.
Practical implications
UK firms and trading venues seeking to establish a presence in the EU27 from which to operate will need to give detailed consideration and focus to the resources and operational substance which will need to be located in the jurisdiction in which that presence is established.
Originality/value
Practical guidance from experienced financial services, securities and fund management lawyers.
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This chapter discusses the “seigniorage argument” in favor of public money issuance, according to which public finances could be improved if the state more fully exercised the…
Abstract
This chapter discusses the “seigniorage argument” in favor of public money issuance, according to which public finances could be improved if the state more fully exercised the privilege of money creation, which is, today, largely shared with private banks. This point was made in the 1930s by several proponents of the “100% money” reform scheme, such as Henry Simons of the University of Chicago, Lauchlin Currie of Harvard and Irving Fisher of Yale, who called for a full-reserve requirement in lawful money behind checking deposits. One of their claims was that, by returning all seigniorage profit to the state, such reform would allow a significant reduction of the national debt. In academic debates, however, following a criticism first made by Albert G. Hart of the University of Chicago in 1935, this argument has generally been discarded as wholly illusory. Hart argued that, because the state, under a 100% system, would be likely to pay the banks a subsidy for managing checking accounts, no substantial debt reduction could possibly be expected to follow. The 100% money proponents never answered Hart’s criticism, whose conclusion has often been considered as definitive in the literature. However, a detailed study of the subject reveals that Hart’s analysis itself appears to be questionable on at least two grounds: the first pertains to the sources of the seigniorage benefit, the other to its distribution. This chapter concludes that the “seigniorage argument” of the 100% money authors may not have been entirely unfounded.
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Leanne J. Morrison and Alan Lowe
Using a dialogic approach to narrative analysis through the lens of fairytale, this paper explores the shared construction of corporate environmental stories. The analysis…
Abstract
Purpose
Using a dialogic approach to narrative analysis through the lens of fairytale, this paper explores the shared construction of corporate environmental stories. The analysis provided aims to reveal the narrative messaging which is implicit in corporate reporting, to contrast corporate and stakeholder narratives and to bring attention to the ubiquity of storytelling in corporate communications.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper examines a series of events in which a single case company plays the central role. The environmental section of the case company's sustainability report is examined through the lens of fairytale analysis. Next, two counter accounts are constructed which foreground multiple stakeholder accounts and retold as fairytales.
Findings
The dialogic nature of accounts plays a critical role in how stakeholders understand the environmental impacts of a company. Storytelling mechanisms have been used to shape the perspective and sympathies of the report reader in favour of the company. We use these same mechanisms to create two collective counter accounts which display different sympathies.
Research limitations/implications
This research reveals how the narrative nature of corporate reports may be used to fabricate a particular perspective through storytelling. By doing so, it challenges the authority of the version of events provided by the company and gives voice to collective counter accounts which are shared by and can be disseminated to other stakeholders.
Originality/value
This paper provides a unique perspective to understanding corporate environmental reporting and the stories shared by and with external stakeholders by drawing from a novel link between fairytale, storytelling and counter accounting.
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This essay focuses on European monetary unification to be completed before the 21st century (1999). In December 1991 in the Dutch city of Maastricht the German Central Bank…
Abstract
This essay focuses on European monetary unification to be completed before the 21st century (1999). In December 1991 in the Dutch city of Maastricht the German Central Bank (Bundesbank) clearly showed that it intends to set and influence the economic policies of all of Europe. Utilizing Game theoretical analysis this paper argues that for Germany a policy of noncooperative leadership is the best strategy. However, for the rest of Europe gaining German cooperation in setting monetary policy is in the community's overall interest. Given the long run need to coordinate policy in a unified Europe, the Bundesbank will cooperate with the rest of EC members. Until the final outcome of this union becomes known, a climate of uncertainty will hover over financial management practices.
This chapter investigates the nature of the transformation of macroeconomics by focusing on the impact of the Great Depression on economic doctrines. There is no doubt that the…
Abstract
This chapter investigates the nature of the transformation of macroeconomics by focusing on the impact of the Great Depression on economic doctrines. There is no doubt that the Great Depression exerted an enormous influence on economic thought, but the exact nature of its impact should be examined more carefully. In this chapter, I examine the transformation from a perspective which emphasizes the interaction between economic ideas and economic events, and the interaction between theory and policy rather than the development of economic theory. More specifically, I examine the evolution of what became known as macroeconomics after the Depression in terms of an ongoing debate among the “stabilizers” and their critics. I further suggest using four perspectives, or schools of thought, as measures to locate the evolution and transformation; the gold standard mentality, liquidationism, the Treasury view, and the real-bills doctrine. By highlighting these four economic ideas, I argue that what happened during the Great Depression was the retreat of the gold standard mentality, the complete demise of liquidationism and the Treasury view, and the strange survival of the real-bills doctrine. Each of those transformations happened not in response to internal debates in the discipline, but in response to government policies and real-world events.
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The similarities among the writings of Ralph Hawtrey, Lauchlin Currie and Milton Friedman are re‐affirmed, as is the influence of the former on what Friedman has called “the…
Abstract
The similarities among the writings of Ralph Hawtrey, Lauchlin Currie and Milton Friedman are re‐affirmed, as is the influence of the former on what Friedman has called “the Chicago tradition” of the 1930s. The underconsumptionist analysis of Paul Douglas is not integral to that tradition.
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This paper introduces a hitherto unpublished 1970 paper written by Lauchlin Currie (1902–1993) on Paul Rosenstein Rodan’s famous 1943 paper on the “Big Push” which led to the…
Abstract
This paper introduces a hitherto unpublished 1970 paper written by Lauchlin Currie (1902–1993) on Paul Rosenstein Rodan’s famous 1943 paper on the “Big Push” which led to the balanced-unbalanced growth debate to which Albert Hirschman (1915–2012) was an important contributor. Both Currie and Hirschman had been key economic advisers to the Colombian government, and their respective views on development planning are contrasted. In particular, it is shown how Currie’s 1970 paper illuminates the theory behind the 1971–1974 national plan for Colombia that he prepared and helped deliver; and how the related institutional innovations have had an enduring impact on Colombia’s recent economic history.