内容简介：
A Financial Times Book of the Year, 2015
An Economist Best Book of the Year, 2015
A Bloomberg Best Book of the Year, 2015
The finance sector of Western economies is too large and attracts too many of the smartest college graduates. Financialization over the past three decades has created a structure that lacks resilience and supports absurd volumes of trading. The finance sector devotes too little attention to the search for new investment opportunities and the stewardship of existing ones, and far too much to secondary-market dealing in existing assets. Regulation has contributed more to the problems than the solutions.
Why? What is finance for? John Kay, with wide practical and academic experience in the world of finance, understands the operation of the financial sector better than most. He believes in good banks and effective asset managers, but good banks and effective asset managers are not what he sees.
In a dazzling and revelatory tour of the financial world as it has emerged from the wreckage of the 2008 crisis, Kay does not flinch in his criticism: we do need some of the things that Citigroup and Goldman Sachs do, but we do not need Citigroup and Goldman to do them. And many of the things done by Citigroup and Goldman do not need to be done at all. The finance sector needs to be reminded of its primary purpose: to manage other people s money for the benefit of businesses and households. It is an aberration when the some of the finest mathematical and scientific minds are tasked with devising algorithms for the sole purpose of exploiting the weakness of other algorithms for computerized trading in securities. To travel further down that road leads to ruin.
作者简介：
John Kay, is a visiting professor of economics at the London School of Economics and a fellow of St John’s College, Oxford University. He is a director of several public companies and contributes a weekly column to the Financial Times. Kay is the author of nine previously published books and coauthor of The British Tax System with Mervyn King. John Kay lives in London.
目录：
Prologue: The Parable of the Ox p. xi
Introduction: Far Too Much of a Good Thing p. 1
Part I Financialisation
Chapter 1 History p. 11
The Road to Pottersville p. 11
The Rise of the Trader p. 16
New Markets, New Businesses p. 23
From Crisis to Crisis p. 34
The Robber Barons p. 42
We Are the 1 Per Cent p. 46
Chapter 2 Risk p. 53
Cows, Coffee and Credit Default Swaps p. 53
Chasing the Dream p. 61
Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard p. 69
Chapter 3 Intermediation p. 77
The Role of the Middleman p. 77
Liquidity p. 84
Diversification p. 91
Leverage p. 95
Chapter 4 Profits p. 101
Smarter People p. 101
Competition p. 106
The Edge p. 108
Regulatory Arbitrage p. 113
I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone p. 118
How Profitable is the Finance Sector? p. 126
Part II The Functions of Finance
Chapter 5 Capital Allocation p. 135
Physical Assets p. 135
Housing p. 140
Property and Infrastructure p. 145
Large Companies p. 150
Financing Small- and Medium-Size Enterprises p. 154
Chapter 6 The Deposit Channel p. 163
Household Wealth p. 163
The Payment System p. 170
The Activities of the Deposit Channel p. 177
Chapter 7 The Investment Channel p. 185
Managing Wealth p. 185
A Bias to Action p. 193
The Role of the Asset Manager p. 197
Part III Policy
Chapter 8 Regulation p. 205
The Origins of Financial Regulation p. 205
The Basel Agreements p. 208
Securities Regulation p. 213
The Regulation Industry p. 216
What Went Wrong p. 220
Chapter 9 Economic Policy p. 227
Maestro p. 227
Financial Markets and Economic Policy p. 234
Pensions and Inter-Generational Equity p. 238
Consumer Protection p. 245
The Economic Contribution of Finance p. 247
Chapter 10 Reform p. 255
Principles of Reform p. 255
Robust Systems and Complex Structures p. 261
Other People's Money p. 267
The Reform of Structure p. 270
Personal Responsibility p. 276
Chapter 11 The Future of Finance p. 281
Epilogue: The Emperor's Guard's New Clothes p. 293
Acknowledgements p. 295
Notes p. 297
Bibliography p. 311
Index p. 321