Money and Banks in the American Political System

Kathryn C. Lavelle

Jan 2013 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

In Money and Banks in the American Political System, debates over financial politics are woven into the political fabric of the state and contemporary conceptions of the American dream. The author argues that the political sources of instability in finance derive from the nexus between market innovation and regulatory arbitrage. This book explores monetary, fiscal and regulatory policies within a political culture characterized by the separation of business and state, and mistrust of the concentration of power in any one political or economic institution. The bureaucratic arrangements among the branches of government, the Federal Reserve, executive agencies, and government sponsored enterprises incentivize agencies to compete for budgets, resources, governing authority and personnel.

About the author

Kathryn C. Lavelle is Ellen and Dixon Long Professor of World Affairs in the Department of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of Legislating International Organization: The US Congress, the IMF, and the World Bank (2011) and The Politics of Equity Finance in Emerging Markets (2004). She served as the William A. Steiger fellow in the American Political Science Association's congressional fellowship program, where she worked on the staff of the House Committee on Financial Services.