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There is much confusion about what shadow banking is. Some equate it with securitization, others with non-traditional bank activities, and yet others with non-bank lending. Regardless, most think of shadow banking as activities that can create systemic risk. This paper proposes to describe shadow banking as ?all financial activities, except traditional banking, which require a private or public backstop to operate?. Backstops can come in the form of franchise value of a bank or insurance company, or in the form of a government guarantee. The need for a backstop is in our view a crucial feature

This study analyses the choice of government debt managers in the euro area between issuing short-term or long-term debt over the period 1992-2017. Debt managers increased short-term debt issuance in response to higher interest rate spreads and to rising government debt, notably in vulnerable, high-debt countries. Thus, lower longterm rates as a result of ECB's Quantitative Easing (QE) triggered debt managers to focus debt issuance on the long-term end. Moreover, the usual increase in debt maturity when debt rises ceases to operate when QE is active, possibly because markets perceived it as a backstop to the government bond market. However, limited QE experience calls for caution in interpreting the results.

Introduction -- Definitions of Sustainability.-Competing Ideals and an Emerging Consensus -- The Science of Sustainability -- Energy and Entropy -- Technology and Engineering -- Complex Systems -- Social Responsibilities -- Emerging Sciences -- The Economics of Sustainability -- The Social Discount Rate -- Non-Renewable Resources -- Depletable Resources -- Renewable Resources -- Backstop Technologies -- The Schumpeterian Hypothesis -- The Challenge of Laissez Faire -- The Natural Resource Curse -- The Role of Government and Regulation -- Tragedy of the Commons -- Environmental Sustainability -- The Limits of Growth- Environmental Degradation -- The Earth's Carrying Capacity -- The Ethics of Sustainability -- The Great Philosophers -- Every Seventh Generation and the Veil of Ignorance -- Close the Barn Door -- East Meets West -- Social Sustainability -- Human Interactions and Populations -- A Clash of Cultures and Ideologies -- The Politics of Sustainability and Sustainable -- Managerial Sustainability -- Sustainable Business Practices -- Business Waves and Fads -- Green Goods and Green is Good -- The Green Supply Chain -- Sustainability Successes -- The Future -- Reporting the Triple Bottom Line -- Policy Prescriptions -- Conclusions.

Part I -- 1. Introduction -- 2. A Critical Transnationalist Approach to the European Financial Governance -- 3. The Banking Industry in the Aftermath of the Financial Crisis -- Part II -- 4. The Supranationalization of Banking Supervision in Europe -- 5. The Crisis Management Framework and the Single Resolution Mechanism -- 6. The Unbacked Backstop: The European Deposit Insurance Scheme -- 7. The Reform of the Prudential Framework and the Single Rule Book -- 8. The Forgotten Pillar. On the Rise and Fall of the Banking Structural Reform -- 9. Conclusions.

This book examines the politics of Banking Union and EMU reform in the EU, and draws lessons for what it means for international politics, both in Europe, and for international relations more broadly. It demonstrates that most of the reforms in Europe to break free of the Eurozone and banking crises in which Europe continues to find itself focus on building up the capacities of national authorities rather than European ones. The result is that national authorities remain largely in control of the decisions and funds that are to be deployed to prevent economic disaster if a single EU bank fails. The likely outcome is an accelerated balkanization of the European market for the foreseeable future. The book also contends that power politics, and realism in particular, is a defining feature of European politics with coercion and enforced national responsibility at the demand of Germany; the dominant form of institution-building that established the responsible sovereignty model, and shut down the possibility of alternatives. In making this case, the book demonstrates that the dominant view in international relations, that power politics best explains the behaviour of states, also apply to the EU. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of the Eurozone crisis, EU politics, economic policy, and more broadly to political economy, public policy and international relations.

Renewable energy generation and storage requires specialized capital goods, embedding critical raw materials (CRM). The scarcity of CRM therefore affects the transition from a fossil based energy system to one based on renewables, necessary to cope with climate change. We consider the issue in a theoretical model, where we allow for a very costly potential substitute, reflecting a backstop technology, and for partial and costly recycling of materials in capital goods. We characterize the main features of the efficient energy transition, and their dependence on the relative abundance of CRM and on the recycling technology. Recycling reduces the cost of the transition. It also calls for having a large stock of recyclable CRM embedded in specialized capital at the time of adoption of the backstop technology. Moreover, we consider constraints on policy tools and myopic regulation, and show how abstracting from the scarcity of CRM, or tightly linking subsidies for renewables to the carbon tax revenue, is misleading in designing climate policy.

Renewable energy generation and storage requires specialized capital goods, embedding critical raw materials (CRM). The scarcity of CRM therefore affects the transition from a fossil based energy system to one based on renewables, necessary to cope with climate change. We consider the issue in a theoretical model, where we allow for a very costly potential substitute, reflecting a backstop technology, and for partial and costly recycling of materials in capital goods. We characterize the main features of the efficient energy transition, and their dependence on the relative abundance of CRM and on the recycling technology. Recycling reduces the cost of the transition. It also calls for having a large stock of recyclable CRM embedded in specialized capital at the time of adoption of the backstop technology. Moreover, we consider constraints on policy tools and myopic regulation, and show how abstracting from the scarcity of CRM, or tightly linking subsidies for renewables to the carbon tax revenue, is misleading in designing climate policy.

Renewable energy generation and storage requires specialized capital goods, embedding critical raw materials (CRM). The scarcity of CRM therefore affects the transition from a fossil based energy system to one based on renewables, necessary to cope with climate change. We consider the issue in a theoretical model, where we allow for a very costly potential substitute, reflecting a backstop technology, and for partial and costly recycling of materials in capital goods. We characterize the main features of the efficient energy transition, and their dependence on the relative abundance of CRM and on the recycling technology. Recycling reduces the cost of the transition. It also calls for having a large stock of recyclable CRM embedded in specialized capital at the time of adoption of the backstop technology. Moreover, we consider constraints on policy tools and myopic regulation, and show how abstracting from the scarcity of CRM, or tightly linking subsidies for renewables to the carbon tax revenue, is misleading in designing climate policy.