The monetary system is the indispensable missing link in the debate of sustainability, and whether the current financial system can handle these evolved needs. To date, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) primarily have been financed either through the private sector, through conventional public sector taxes and fees, or through philanthropic commitment. Assuming a need of 4 to 5 trillion dollars annually in the 10 to 15 years left to finance our future, these conventional sources of finance are insufficient in terms of both the scale and speed of funding required to finance our future. Furthermore, the inherent instability of our financial system forces the world community to focus first and foremost on repairing and stabilizing the existing system. The development of cryptocurrencies using distributed ledger technologies (mainly blockchain) has prompted leading central banks to study the potential application of this approach to independently create purchasing power. In this vein, this book offers a new approach, namely introducing a parallel electronic currency specifically designed to finance global common goods and provide the resources necessary to achieve the SDGs. Furthermore, this mechanism would have a stabilizing effect on the existing monetary system. The book argues that one way this could be achieved is by giving central banks a modified monetary mandate to inject new liquidity into the system using a top-down approach. Alternatively, liquidity could come from corporate or communal initiatives with crypto- or communal currencies in a bottom-up approach. The author maintains that by issuing a blockchain-enabled parallel electronic currency earmarked for SDG-related projects and using other channels for monetary flow rather than the conventional ones, the future could be financed in a different manner. In the long run, abandoning our current monetary monoculture and introducing a monetary ecosystem would stabilize international financial markets, increase monetary regulatory efforts, reduce negative externalities, create a social Pareto optimum and stabilize democracies. This book presents, in the same spirit as Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, a Tao of finance--an outside-of-the-box approach to financing global common goods.

How to use finance as a tool to build a more equitable and sustainable society. Money defines our present and will shape our future. Every investment decision we make adds a chapter to the story of what our world will look like. Although the idea of mission-based finance has been around for decades, there is a gap between organizations' stated intention to "do good" and meaningful impact. Still, some are succeeding. In Just Money, Katrin Kaufer and Lillian Steponaitis take readers on a global tour of financial institutions that use finance as a force for good.

During the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, our financial infrastructure failed. Governments bailed out the very institutions that let the economy down. This episode spurred a serious rethink of our financial system. Does it make any sense that it takes two days to settle a stock transaction? Why do retailers, operating on razor thin margins, have to pay 3% for every customer credit card swipe? Why does it take two days to transfer money from a bank account to a brokerage—or any other company? Why are savings rates miniscule or negative? Why is it so difficult for entrepreneurs to get financing at traditional banks? In DeFi and the Future of Finance, Campbell R. Harvey, Ashwin Ramachandran and Joey Santoro, introduce the new world of Decentralized Finance. The book argues that the current financial landscape is ripe for disruption and we are seeing, in real time, the reinvention of finance. The authors provide the reader with a clear assessment of the problems with the current financial system and how DeFi solves many of these problems. The essence of DeFi is that we interact with peers—there is no brick and mortar and all of the associated costs. Savings and lending are reinvented. Trading takes place with algorithms far removed from traditional brokerages. The book conducts a deep dive on some of the most innovative protocols such as Uniswap and Compound. Many of the companies featured in the book you might not have heard of—however, you will in the future. As with any new technology, there are a myriad of risks and the authors carefully catalogue these risks and assess which ones can be successfully mitigated. Ideally suited for people working in any part of the finance industry as well as financial policy makers, DeFi and the Future of Finance gives readers a vision of the future. The world of finance will fundamentally be changed over the coming decade. The book enables you to become part of the disruption – not the target of the disruption.

How to reimagine finance against the many threats to the future of the species: a blueprint for sustainable finance Daily bad news about climate change, shrinking resources, global health crises, species extinction and growing inequalities cause tremendous anxiety and insecurity, especially since the COVID pandemic. The ambition of this book is to explain in simple but precise terms, by means of concise illustrations, what "finance" is, and how its most innovative form, sustainable finance, can reconcile the well-being of mankind with the capacities of our planet. Is there a way to convince society that a fundamental transition is necessary--or even more, that it is possible? Can sustainable finance help? Financing Our Common Futureoffers encouraging perspectives by showing how little-known groups of financial stakeholders, such as development banks, are actively working to make sustainable finance happen. The book invites you to enjoy a journey through a multitude of situations, to question our preconceptions and to open our mindset so we can envision better ways of moving forward.

Development needs to meet the UN SDG have primarily been financed through private sector financing, conventional public sector funding and philanthropic commitment. These sources are not sufficient in scale and speed to meet the pressing finance needs. The world community is too busy repairing, stabilizing, and refunding the system to maintain the stability of the existing system. The introduction of a parallel electronic currency specifically designed to finance global commons, and a human-centred economy would provide the necessary resources to achieve the UN SDGs while stabilizing the existing monetary system. This book analyses how the development of cryptocurrencies based on blockchain distributed ledger technologies has prompted leading central banks around the world to study the potential application of this approach to directly inject purchasing power without dependence on the banking system. Furthermore, the book illustrates how this approach can be utilized to finance the huge multi-trillion dollar annual investment requirements for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). With a Foreword from the President of the Club of Rome. “This book is where fiction turns into fact.” - World Bestselling Author of ‚The Minister of the Future‘ Stan Robinson “...challenging, innovative and interdisciplinary... to address the world’s problems.” - Founder and Father of the Quantitative Easing (QE), Prof. Dr. Richard Werner, Oxford University, GB “The real tragedy of the commons, as this book shows, is that we have allowed the most valuable social resources, our money and legal systems, to be employed for private gain instead of mobilizing them for social goals, not the least to ensure the survival of the human species on this planet.” - Best-selling author of ‚The code of capital’ Katharina Pistor, Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law and Director, Center on Global Legal Transformation Columbia Law School, USA

'Within the cacophony of voices trying to explain the recent financial crisis, Elena Esposito's voice sounds clear and deep. Steering away from simplistic condemnations and equally simplistic prescriptions for betterment, she connects the very invention of derivatives to that eternal human hope – of controlling the future. While the task is impossible, the attempts never stop, and the very process of attempting it brings some consolation. And while derivatives can be seen, claim sociologists of finance, as performative, that is shaping the future they promise to control, even this is far from certain. Esposito's fascinating and beautiful work is an important contribution to the sociology of finance, a subdiscipline of sociology that took on itself an extremely important task of explaining how the finance markets really work.'– Barbara Czarniawska, University of Gothenburg, Sweden'This is a brilliant and timely book that shows how financing is centrally implicated in the very unpredictability and uncertainty it purports to master. With the incisiveness characteristic of her style and writing, Esposito reads economics in innovative ways that disclose the hidden premises by which financial instruments trade and consume the prospects of the future.' – Jannis Kallinikos, London School of Economics, UK'Elena Esposito's analysis of financial markets and of their recent decline is radically different from the analyses which can be found in economic journals or books. Financial operations are reduced to their basic dimensions: time and money. Under this perspective, what is sold on financial markets is the possibility for the creation of commitments in the course of time, the possibility for the combination of these commitments with one another, and the identification of chances for the achievement of profit opportunities through the creation of specific combinations. The author argues that the recent crisis of the financial system was caused by oversimplified visions of the future and of risk leading to the consequence that options were not available in the present because all possibilities had been used up by the future. This oversimplified vision of the future imploded, and trust with it. The state tried to reconstruct options for the future in order to open up new possibilities and chances for learning. The author does not deliver recipes on how to prevent severe crises of the financial system in the future. Yet, her concept facilitates understanding of how financial futures are opened up or closed and thus provides insights into basic principles on whose basis future opportunities can be kept open and trust can be maintained. Innovative reforms of the financial system can only develop on the basis of unconventional analyses. Elena Esposito's book contains an analysis of this kind.'– Alfred Kieser, Mannheim University, Germany'Elena Esposito's book is a fundamental analysis of time in economics. With economic rigour underpinned by sociological reasoning, she explains the futures market more clearly than is possible with economic analysis alone. Economic concepts are considered in terms of time – actors deal in the present with future risks by transferring these risks to the present situation. As a result, we get more options and more risks at the same time: at present. No equilibrium will balance these trades because of the asymmetry of time: our actual decisions deal with our imagination of the future, that is, with the future of the present, but the results will be realized in the presence of the future – different modalities of time. The book is a sound reflection on modelling time in economic theory, a "must" for economists.'– Birger P. Priddat, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany'The Future of Futures is an original and intellectually provocative book which forces the reader to think. Esposito's essay fulfils two rather different functions. On the one hand, it brings new and persuasive arguments to bear against the erroneous thesis that the present financial crisis is merely due to human mistakes and to some specific government failures. On the other hand, the book suggests that only by reconsidering the role of time in the economy is it possible to make full sense of the crisis and to re-orient in a desired direction the future movements of money. It is a well-known fact that traditional economics has always adhered to a spatial conception of time, according to which time, like space, is perfectly reversible. Whence its inability both to understand how economies develop and to prescribe adequate policies. The author's proposal is to move steps ahead in the direction of an analysis of an economy in time, where both historical time and time as duration can find a place. Esposito's well-written, jargon-free book will capture the attention of anyone seriously interested in the future of our market systems.'– Stefano Zamagni, University of Bologna and Johns Hopkins University, Bologna Center, Italy This book reconstructs the dynamics of economics, beginning explicitly with the role and the relevance of time: money uses the future in order to generate present wealth. Financial markets sell and buy risk, thereby binding the future. Elena Esposito explains that complex risk management techniques of structured finance produce new and uncontrolled risks because they use a simplified idea of the future, failing to account for how the future reacts to attempts at controlling it. During the recent financial crisis, the future had already been used (through securitizations, derivatives and other tools) to the extent that we had many futures, but no open future available.

Financial innovation can drive social, economic, and environmental change, transforming ideas into new technologies, industries, and jobs. But when it is misunderstood or mismanaged, the consequences can be severe. In this practical, accessible book, two leading experts explain how sophisticated capital structures can enable companies and individuals to raise funding in larger amounts for longer terms and at lower cost—accomplishing tasks that would otherwise be impossible. The authors recount the history and basic principles of financial innovation, showing how new instruments have evolved, and how they have been used and misused. They thoroughly demystify complex capital structures, offering a practical toolbox for entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and policymakers. Financing the Future presents clear, thorough discussions of the current role of financial innovation in capitalizing businesses, industries, breakthrough technologies, housing solutions, medical treatments, and environmental projects. It also presents a full chapter of lessons learned: essential insights for stabilizing the economy and avoiding pitfalls. Distinguishing genuine innovation from dangerous copycats Crafting sustainable financial innovations that add value and manage risk The best tools for the job: choosing them, customizing them, using them Selecting the right instruments and structures, and making the most of them Financial innovations for business, housing, and medical research Finding new and better ways to promote entrepreneurship and advance social goals Innovating to save the planet and help humanity The power of finance to protect natural resources and alleviate global poverty This is the first in a new series of books on financial innovation, published through a collaboration between Wharton School Publishing and the Milken Institute. Future titles will focus on specific policy areas such as housing and medical research. The Milken Institute is an independent economic think tank whose mission is to improve the lives and economic conditions of diverse populations in the United States and around the world by helping business and public policy leaders identify and implement innovative ideas for creating broad-based prosperity. It puts research to work with the goal of revitalizing regions and finding new ways to generate capital for people with original ideas.