Public Banks: Decarbonisation, Definancialisation and Democratisation

336 Pages·2021·1.902 MB·English

by  Thomas Marois

Public Banks
Public banks are banks located within the public sphere of a state.
They are pervasive, with more than 900 institutions worldwide, and
powerful,wieldingtensoftrillionsinassets.Publicbanksareneither
essentiallygoodnorbad.Rather,theyaredynamicinstitutions,made
and remade by contentious social forces. As the first single-authored
book on public banks, this timely intervention examines how these
institutions can confront the crisis of climate finance and catalyse a
green andjust transition. Theauthor explores six case studies across
the globe, demonstrating that public banks have acquired the repre-
sentative structures,financial capacity,institutional knowledge, col-
laborativenetworksandgeographicalreachtotackledecarbonisation,
definancialisation and democratisation. These institutions are not
without contradictions, torn as they are between contending public
andprivateinterestsinclass-dividedsociety.Ultimately,socialforces
andstrugglesshapehow–andif–publicbanksservethepublicgood.
  isaSeniorLectureratSOASUniversityofLondon
and Senior Research Fellow in Patient Finance and Banking at the
UCLInstituteforInnovationandPublicPurpose(IIPP).Hesitsonthe
AdvisoryBoardofthePublicBankingInstitute,hasauthoredthebook
States, Banks and Crisis (2012) and co-edited the book Public Banks
andCovid-19(2020).
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Public Banks
Decarbonisation,
fi
De nancialisation and
Democratisation
 
SOASUniversityofLondonandUCLInstituteforInnovation
andPublicPurpose
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DOI:10.1017/9781108989381
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Contents
ListofFigures pagex
ListofTables xi
ListofBoxes xii
ListofAbbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
I.1 ResurgentPublicBanksandtheCrisesofFinance,
ofClimateFinance,andofCovid-19 8
I.2 ANoteonMethodology 22
I.3 TheArgumentRestatedandStructureoftheBook 24
1 The World ofPublic Banks 28
1.1 LocatingPublicBankswithinCreditSystems 29
1.2 TheImpoverishmentofPublicBanksin
InternationalDevelopment 35
1.3 TheWorldofPublicBanks:InstitutionsandAssets 39
2 Contrasting Evidence,Contending Views: Towardsa
DynamicAlternative 56
2.1 TheContrastingEmpiricalEvidence 56
2.2 TheContendingTheoreticalViews 63
2.3 TowardsanAlternativeDynamicView 70
3 CredibleLegacies, Neoliberal Transition 85
3.1 ABriefHistoryofPublicBankingInstitutions 85
3.2 AHistoryofInstitutionalFunctions 94
3.3 TheTransitiontoNeoliberalism 102
vii
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viii 
4 Decarbonisation 108
4.1 TheProblemofPublicBanksFinancing
Decarbonisation 109
4.2 TheWaysofPublicBanksFinancingDecarbonisation:
TheChinaDevelopmentBankandNordic
InvestmentBank 116
4.3 ContradictingGreenandGrowthImperatives 138
5 Definancialisation 147
5.1 TheProblemofDefinancialisingFinance 148
5.2 TheWaysofDefinancialisation:TheNationalBankfor
AgricultureandRuralDevelopmentandtheBankof
NorthDakota 154
5.3 ContradictingDefinancialisation 177
6 Democratisation 186
6.1 TheProblemofDemocratisingFinance 187
6.2 TheWaysofDemocratisation:TheKfWandtheBanco
PopularydeDesarrolloComunal 193
6.3 TheContradictionsofDemocratisationinGlobal
FinancialisedCapitalism 215
7 ADemocratised Public Bank fora Green and Just
Transition: A Proposal 222
7.1 ThePossibilityofCreatingNewPublicBanks 224
7.2 DesigningaPublicBankThatIsFinancially
Sustainable 225
7.3 ConnectingPublicBankswithCommunity 238
7.4 DemocratisingPublicBanksforaGreenand
JustTransition 242
8 Epilogue:Public Banks in aTime ofCovid-19 248
8.1 TheProblemoftheCovid-19Pandemic 249
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 ix
8.2 PublicBanks:MakingTimeinResponsetothe
Covid-19Crisis 253
8.3 TheWaysofPublicBanksConfrontingthePandemic 256
References 276
Index 316
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Figures
I.1 Contemporarypublicbanksinclass-divided
society page2
I.2 Publicbanksbeingmadeandremade 8
I.3 Ownershipformandinstitutionalfunctions 10
1.1 Interconnectedelementsofamoderncreditsystem 30
2.1 Publicbankswithinglobalfinancialisedcapitalism 73
7.1 Atriplebottomline:democratised,greenandjust,
andsustainable 223
7.2 Envisioningademocratisedpublicbanking
solidaritystructure 239
7.3 Democratisationstructureofpublicbank 243
x
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