The Lion Wakes tells the modern story of HSBC, starting in the late 1970s, when the bank first broke out of the Asia-Pacific region with its purchase of Marine Midland Bank in the US. It follows HSBC's battle to purchase Midland Bank in1992, the subsequent move of head office from Hong Kong to London, and the string of acquisitions that brought the bank to its pre-eminent place in global finance today. Acclaimed historians Richard Roberts and David Kynaston chronicle the bank's struggles as well as its successes: the last part of the book deals with the ill-fated move into consumer finance in the US, as well as the financial crisis of 2008 and its effect on HSBC. Impeccably researched and generously illustrated from the HSBC archives, this is a valuable addition to global financial history.

In this bold, exciting and readable volume, Paul Cheshire, Max Nathan and Henry Overman illustrate the insights that recent economic research brings to our understanding of cities, and the lessons for urban policy-making. The authors present new evidence on the fundamental importance of cities to economic wellbeing and to the enrichment of our lives. They also argue that many policies have been trying to push water uphill and have done little to achieve their stated aims; or, worse, have had unintended and counterproductive consequences.

The failure of economists to anticipate the global financial crisis and mitigate the impact of the ensuing recession has spurred a public outcry. Economists are under fire, but questions concerning exactly how to redeem the discipline remain unanswered. In this provocative book, renowned economist Meghnad Desai investigates the evolution of economics and maps its trajectory against the occurrence of major political events to provide a definitive answer.

In March 2012, the Financial Times carried a front page story headlined 'Years of struggle for a jinxed generation'. It stated that 'For the first time in half a century, young Britons embarking on their careers cannot expect to be any better off than their parents…' Before and since, there have been numerous analyses highlighting a gloomy future ahead, and with little qualification or equivocation. The prevailing consensus since 2007 has been that the economic world is in a dire state. But are things really as bad as all that, or is sloppy thinking and excessively negative sentiment masking a more positive outlook? Making Sense of Markets argues that received wisdom is still far too pessimistic, and that investment opportunities have been missed as a result.

Today's global economy, with most developed nations experiencing very low inflation, seems a world apart from the "Great Inflation" that spanned the late 1960s to early 1980s. Yet, in this book, Brigitte Granville makes the case that monetary economists and policymakers need to keep the lessons learned during that period very much in mind, lest we return to them by making the same mistakes we made in the past.

Should governments save people from themselves? Do governments have the right to influence citizens' behavior related to smoking tobacco, eating too much, not saving enough, drinking alcohol, or taking marijuana–or does this create a nanny state, leading to infantilization, demotivation, and breaches in individual autonomy? Looking at examples from both sides of the Atlantic and around the world, Government Paternalism examines the justifications for, and the prevalence of, government involvement and considers when intervention might or might not be acceptable.

From Paul Mason, the award-winning Channel 4 presenter, Postcapitalism is a guide to our era of seismic economic change, and how we can build a more equal society.

Today, 'collaborative consumption' lets people earn over $15 billion a year by sharing what they already own: from cars and homes to money and time. And that's almost nothing. According to PwC, the sharing economy will grow into a $335 billion market by 2025. Written by one of the business leaders of the movement, The Business of Sharing is an insider's guide for anyone thinking of entering the sharing economy and looking to profit from the upheavals ahead.

In a story teeming with playboys and scoundrels and rich in colorful and amazing events, Klaus chronicles the evolution of trust through three distinct epochs: the age of values, the age of networks and reputations, and, ultimately, in a world of increased technology and wealth, the age of skepticism and verification. In today’s world, where the questionable dealings of large international financial institutions are continually in the spotlight, this extraordinary history has great relevance, offering essential lessons in both the importance and the limitations of trust.

The authors examine the evolution of happiness research, considering the famous "Easterlin Paradox," which found that people's average life satisfaction didn't seem to depend on their income. But they question whether happiness research can measure what needs to be measured. They argue that we should not assess people's well-being on a "happiness scale," because that necessarily obscures true social progress. Instead, rising income should be understood as increasing opportunities and alleviating scarcity.

Inequality is one of our most urgent social problems. Curbed in the decades after World War II, it has recently returned with a vengeance. Anthony Atkinson has long been at the forefront of research on inequality, and brings his theoretical and practical experience to bear on its diverse problems. In this book, he presents a comprehensive set of policies that could bring about a genuine shift in the distribution of income in developed countries.

The EU needs fundamental reform: it has not delivered the prosperity and growth it promised; the euro has turned out to be part of the problem rather than the solution; the EUs share of world GDP is set to fall sharply. This updated and expanded edition of Roger Bootle s critically acclaimed book includes new material on federal union, policies to avert catastrophe in the Eurozone (including the Greek situation) and mass migration.

Today's economy has seen an explosion of new forms of monetary exchange not created by the federal government. Credit card companies offer points that can be traded in for a variety of goods and services, from airline miles to online store credit. Online game creators have devised new mediums of electronic exchange that turn virtual money into real money. In this dynamic and essential work, Edward explores the current phenomenon of virtual currencies and what it will mean legally,

Poverty in Britain is at post-war highs and - even with economic growth -is set to increase yet further. Food bank queues are growing, levels of severe deprivation have been rising, and increasing numbers of children are left with their most basic needs unmet.

Based on exclusive access to the largest ever survey of poverty in the UK, and its predecessor surveys in the 1980s and 1990s, Stewart Lansley and Joanna Mack track changes in deprivation and paint a devastating picture of the reality of poverty today and its causes.

Why are we more likely to forgo the opportunity to sell a £100 bottle of wine rather than actually taking money out our wallet to pay for it, when ultimately the 'opportunity cost' of doing so is the same? Why would the 'endowment effect' mean that we value a free ticket worth hundreds of pounds more than the money we would get from selling it? In this new, ambitious work, Thaler presents his findings in behavioural economics and breaks down the biases and irrational tendancies in our thinking, showing us how to avoid making costly mistakes in life.

The risks of climate change are potentially immense. The benefits of taking action are also clear: we can see that economic development, reduced emissions, and creative adaptation go hand in hand. In this book, Nicholas Stern explains why, notwithstanding the great attractions of a new path, it has been so difficult to tackle climate change effectively. He makes a compelling case for climate action now and sets out the forms that action should take.

The Forgotten Depression - 1921 is an account of the deep economic slump of 1920–21 that proposes, with respect to federal intervention, “less is more.” This is a free-market rejoinder to the Keynesian stimulus applied by Bush and Obama to the 2007–09 recession, in whose aftereffects, Grant asserts, the nation still toils.

James Grant tells the story of America’s last governmentally-untreated depression; relatively brief and self-correcting, it gave way to the Roaring Twenties. His book appears in the fifth year of a lackluster recovery from the overmedicated downturn of 2007–2009

This book provides a history of British financial crises since the Napoleonic wars. Interest in crises lapsed during the generally benign financial conditions which followed the Second Word War, but the study of banking markets and financial crises has returned to centre stage following the credit crunch of 2007-8 and the subsequent Eurozone crisis.

In Climate Shock, Gernot Wagner and Martin Weitzman explore in lively, clear terms the likely repercussions of a hotter planet, drawing on and expanding from work previously unavailable to general audiences

Economics is a broken science, living in a kind of Alice in Wonderland state believing in multiple, inconsistent, things at the same time. Prior to the financial crisis, mainstream economics argued simultaneously for small government on taxation, regulation and spending, but big government on monetary policy. After the financial crisis, economics is now arguing for more government spending and for less government spending.

The premise of this book is that the internal inconsistencies between economic theories - the apparently unresolvable debates between leading economists and the incoherent policies of our governments - are symptomatic of economics being in a crisis. Specifically, in a scientific crisis.