The Fintech Sensation - What is it about?

The years following the 2008 financial crisis have been characterized by the emergence of new financial service providers, called fintech. The term is defined and understood differently in the literature. There is an agreement that fintech is composed of the words "financial" and "technology". Regarding the different views and definitions, there is great heterogeneity in the literature and this article tries to systematize them. Furthermore, different justifications for its existence are examined and a proposal for categorization is made. Argumentatively, various opportunities and risks are highlighted that arise in connection with Fintech. Finally, various ideas and starting points for further research are derived from the arguments. Keywords: Fintech, Tech innovation, Financial technology

Exploring the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on Algeria’s energy used and climate change based on Olduvai theory

The Death of Industrial Civilization explains how the contemporary ecological crisis within industrial society is caused by the values inherent in unlimited economic growth and competitive materialism. It demonstrates the central role and importance of electricity, and what policy makers need to do in order to ensure that current and future systems remain reliable even as they are transformed by the rise of clean energy technologies. The novel COVID19 pandemic has created an unprecedented global health and economic crisis. The result of such a scenario is that energy demand contracts by 6%, the largest in 70 years in percentage terms and the largest ever in absolute terms. The impact of Covid19 on energy demand in 2020 would be more than seven times larger than the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on global energy demand and this is what the Olduvai theory is defined by e=energy production/population. It states that the life expectancy of Industrial Civilization is less than or equal to 100 years.

Schemes of Arrangement

Schemes of arrangement are an important and flexible mechanism, which can be used to reorganise a company's capital. Schemes have undergone a renaissance over the last twenty years, particularly as a debt restructuring device in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis when companies and their advisors have needed to develop effective tools for dealing with financial distress. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a further incentive for jurisdictions to ensure that they have an effective debt restructuring mechanism in place. Schemes have also become the mechanism of choice for recommended takeovers. This book performs a critical, contextual and comparative analysis of schemes and their uses, examines recent developments in this area, including the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020, and considers whether further reform is needed to ensure that schemes continue to develop as an indispensable tool for companies for the future.

An Econometric Approach on Performance, Assets, and Liabilities in a Sample of Banks from Europe, Israel, United States of America, and Canada

The 2008 financial crisis had a major impact on financial markets, especially on the banking system. Mortgage-backed security investments were among the causes that determined the tremendous shortage of cash. Before the crisis, American banks were considered important investors on these markets, as indicated by the structure of their assets and liabilities. How grounded were their investment decisions? To answer this question, the study examined the influence of financial performance on bank assets and liabilities of the most important 45 banks from Europe and Israel, United States of America, and Canada during the period 2006–2020. Through a panel generalized method of moments approach, empirical results indicated a strong impact of bank assets and liabilities ratios on financial performance indicators. The study emphasizes that bank managers, researchers, regulators, and supervisors should consider investment policies, especially for bank assets and liabilities. Therefore, a high level of interest income is an important tool for increasing assets and liabilities. At the same time, fees are other levers that could improve bank benefits and ultimately develop the lending activity when interest income enters a descending trend.

Crisis and Dystopia in the Current Spanish Novel Un incendio invisible, by Sara Mesa and Por si se va la Luz, by Lara Moreno

Europe in general and Spain in particular are still experiencing the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis. Spanish cultural narratives have imagined other possible scenarios around a financial crisis that has not only been an economic one, but also a social one. In that context, Spanish literature was used not only as a means to elaborate coherent narratives in times of crisis but also as a space to create other possible worlds. The novels Un incendio invisible (2011), by Sara Mesa, and Por si se ve la Luz (2013), by Lara Moreno, are both set in imaginary places in which their protagonists – sometimes driven by desire and other times by necessity – survive in hostile, abandoned and primitive places. The article attempts to analyse the dominance of the construction of dystopian places and the creation of ‘another possible world’ as a consequence of the financial crisis of 2008.

Toward a Realism of the World-System: John Lanchester’s Capital and the Global City

This essay explores how John Lanchester’s Capital adapts classical realism to represent the contemporary global city; it pays particular attention to how London’s position in the world-system disrupts Lukácsian totality. Because the novel attends to the complexity and extensiveness of the world-system, it depicts the city not as a representative totality but as embedded in the global circuits of capital, shaped by the influences of inward migration and global finance. In this the novel has affinities with many fictions of the global periphery, for instance portraying the city as at once socially fragmented and structurally connected. Furthermore, the novel departs from classical realism in its closure; though the 2008 financial crisis is omitted from the novel, it overshadows the entire plot, and its absence emphasizes the lack of finality in the story of this phase of capitalism itself. In demonstrating the temporal and spatial unknowability of contemporary capital, Lanchester’s novel both affirms the capacity of realism to trace deep systemic connections and reveals the fragility of its construction of a social totality, positing a realism attendant to its own perspectival limits within the world-system.

Theory vs. Practice: Does Fiscal Policy Crowd Out Business Investment during Crises?

In 2020, the South Korean government aimed to mitigate the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by enacting a fiscal stimulus package worth 66.8 trillion won. Traditional economic theory warns that such deficit-financed expansionary fiscal policies can have the adverse effect of crowding out business investment, but the current literature is more divided: some argue that the crowding-out effect outweighs the multiplier effect of fiscal stimulus; some claim that the two effects cancel each other out; and others assert that the scale of crowding out is small, at least in recessions. It is important to study the existence and scale of crowding out during recessions to evaluate the soundness of fiscal policies as a countercyclical tool. Thus, this paper examines whether Korea’s fiscal policy crowded out business investment during two severe economic downturns: the “great recession” of 2008 and the “great lockdown” of 2020. The paper uses a cross-time case comparison of the two economic crises in the hopes of drawing generalizable conclusions for South Korea over time. The findings show that Korea’s facility investment continued to increase during the recent pandemic but decreased during the 2008 financial crisis. Was this due to crowding out? Further analysis suggests that the decrease in investment during the 2008 crisis was due to factors other than crowding out. Hence, the paper concludes that Korea’s fiscal responses to the two crises did not crowd out business investment and thus encourages the continued use of appropriately sized and targeted fiscal stimulus during recessions.

Productive Capacities, Economic Growth and Economic Growth Volatility in Developing Countries: Does Structural Economic Vulnerability Matter?

Recent years’ global shocks (e.g., the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic) and environmental shocks — such as natural disasters — have heightened the vulnerability of developing countries to future shocks, and can compromise their development prospects. International institutions and researchers have advocated that the strengthening of productive capacities in these countries would help enhance the resilience of their economies to shocks, and promote sustainable development. This paper has examined the effect of productive capacities on economic growth and economic growth volatility in developing countries, in particular when they face a high level of structural economic vulnerability. The analysis covers 117 developing countries over the period of 2000–2018. It shows that productive capacities not only promote economic growth, but also reduce economic growth volatility. On the other hand, structural economic vulnerability reduces economic growth (in particular when it exceeds a certain level), and induces greater volatility of economic growth. Interestingly, productive capacities promote economic growth and reduce economic growth volatility in countries that face a high degree of structural economic vulnerability. These findings support the recommendation by international institutions and researchers that if they were to enhance the resilience of their economies to shocks, and promote sustainable economic growth, developing countries (in particular the poorest ones) should strengthen their productive capacities.