Finance & Business
Photo credit: agtwo
At nef we believe that the economic system should be reformed so as to deliver high levels of human well-being and an equitable distribution of income and wealth within natural environmental limits.
Reform of the financial and business sectors is fundamental to achieving these goals. The global financial crisis demonstrated the fragility of our financial system and exposed fundamental flaws. The UK banking system had long been failing to effectively serve society and the productive economy. Our work on financial reform seeks to identify what a finance sector that serves the real economy and society looks like, and how it can be regulated.
Our work on sustainable business looks to establish ways of aligning the interests of society with those of business, for example through pricing that approaches ‘real value’. We ask what the implications are for business of resource constraints, meeting carbon targets, and also of the Great Transition that we argue is both possible and necessary over the coming decades.
Team members
- Josh Ryan-Collins, Senior Researcher, Monetary Reform
- Leander Bindewald, Researcher/Project Manager, Complementary Currencies
- Lydia Prieg, Researcher, Financial Reform
- Susan Steed, Researcher, Finance and Business
- Tony Greenham, Head of Finance and Business
Blog post // May 10, 2013
Transforming finance: a ‘how to’ guide forged in the public interest
How can we create a more diverse banking industry? This is one of the questions on the agenda at today's Transforming Finance conference in London. More
Blog post // March 28, 2013
Why the UK could benefit from Stakeholder Banks
A new nef paper shows the benefits of a more diverse banking system. More
Publication // March 28, 2013
Stakeholder Banks
Identifying successful alternatives to commercial banks.
More
Publication // February 27, 2013
Energising Money
The world is facing an ecological crisis. Our economic system fails to properly account for the natural resources on which human prosperity depends. But attempts to remedy the problem, for example through environmental taxation, fail to address an elephant lurking in the room: the monetary system. Energy-related money offers a means to improve the qualities of the monetary system, while also stimulating the low-carbon energy transition we urgently need.
More
Blog post // February 4, 2013
Why the Banking Reform Bill doesn’t go far enough
This morning the Chancellor announced that he will implement the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards’ recommendations to ‘electrify’ the ringfence between investment and retail banking (the ringfence will allow money to be transferred from the investment banking subsidiary of a bank to the retail banking subsidiary, but not vice versa. More
Video // December 20, 2012
Uncovering the secrets of international finance: Private investment in the developing world
To what extent does the private sector really facilitate lasting global development? More
Blog post // December 19, 2012
Banks are still too big to fail
Banks occupy a unique position in our economy and enjoy privileges that other industries can never hope for. More
Blog post // December 14, 2012
Uncovering the secrets of international finance: Shadow banks
There are rules about what banks can and can't do with our money. As a result, a whole host of other institutions have emerged that behave like banks, but because they don't call themselves banks, face much less regulation. This largely unregulated activity is called shadow banking.
More
Blog post // December 12, 2012
The big questions on money and banking we should all be asking
Buy your copy from us or via Amazon
Watch the video
Blog post // December 6, 2012
Uncovering the secrets of international finance: Capital controls
Over the last few decades, governments around the world have worked hard to strip away all obstacles to the free flow of money from country to country. The idea is simple: the freer the money, the more prosperous we all become.
But is free flowing money really all it's cracked up to be? Instead of aiding international development, there is evidence that it instead leads to asset bubbles, and the speedy transmission of financial crises from one country to another.
More