Everyday Life Of Global Finance

Grounded in literature from the sociology of finance and international political economy, and informed by extensive empirical research, The Everyday Life of Global Finance explores the unprecedented relationships that now bind Anglo-American society with the financial markets. As mutual funds have increased in popularity and pension provision has been transformed, many more individuals and households have come to invest in stocks and shares. As consumer borrowing has risen dramatically and mortgage finance has embraced those deemed sub-prime, so the repayments of credit card holders and mortgagors have provided the basis for the issue and trading of bonds and other market instruments. The Everyday Life of Global Finance is an ambitious and innovative contribution to our understanding of the contemporary financial world. It shows how financial market networks have come to extend well beyond Wall Street and the City of London, becoming embedded and embodied in routine saving and borrowing in the US and UK. Society's new-found relationships with the markets are also shown, however, to be marked by stark inequalities, manifest contradictions, and political dissent. Review: This is an undeniably important and timely book. We are at a moment of significant change and uncertainty within the Anglo-American financial system within which many of us are irrevocably entangled due to our everyday roles as borrowers and/or savers. Langley reveals with skill and insight how we have arrived at this particular financial and political conjuncture and, in doing so, provides an important resource to help determine where we may be headed. * Andrew Leyshon, Professor of Economic Geography, University of Nottingham * In a major statement of the new IPE, Paul Langley demonstrates how everyday forms of saving and borrowing produce subject positions and financial identities among everyday actors that are the 'unrecognized' constitutive elements of the global financial order. * Mark Blyth, Associate Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University * This is a major study of how the 'democratization of finance' in our time has worked to create new identities for savers and borrowers. It challenges us all to think again about how we understand the remaking of present day capitalism. * Karel Williams, Professor of Accounting and Political Economy, University of Manchester * The credit crisis shows the importance of understanding how everyday saving and borrowing interact with global finance. Langley provides a thorough, sophisticated and timely analysis. * Donald MacKenzie, Professor of Sociology, University of Edinburgh, and author of An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets *