New Economics Foundation
The New Economics Foundation (NEF ) is an independent British think tank, founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit ( TOES ). James Robertson, a British economist, and Alison Pritchard, a member of the Council of the Schumacher Society, participated in the construction of The Other Economic Summit and together founded the NEF.
The stated purpose of the organization is to improve the quality of life through innovations should be developed that put people and the planet Earth first digit is dominant doctrines in the fields of economic, environmental and social issues - such as ideas about the growth in the modern economy - should it be subjected to criticism.
In July 2006, NEF launched the Happy Planet Index. It presents itself as an alternative to previous attempts to provide nation-states economically and socially in a hierarchy, as a result of their gross national product or the Human Development Index (HDI ).
Ecology of finance
In July 2009, the British Treasury published the White Paper on Reforming Financial Markets. The cause of the economic crisis, it is called commercial wrong decisions in the context of excessive leverage and risk taking extremely high. Banks as non-banks have too much debt and are too high bets received. Especially risky products such as buy-to -let mortgages show that were " always laid more eggs in fewer baskets ." There was also a wave of mergers that auszahlten at the end for those involved in the fusion agent, but not for the shareholders.
According to the judgment of the Treasury, the crisis has been developed in the U.S. subprime market due to risk misperceptions. The resulting bank losses meant that the banks mutually doubted their creditworthiness, which then resulted in a general credit crunch. The fall of Lehman Brothers made the systemic crisis ultimately obviously.
What the opinion of NEF still lacking and is urgently required is a positive vision of what overarching task is to fulfill the banking system in general. This gap will close the alternative white paper.
Requirements established according to Robert C. Merton tasks of a financial system of NEF extended by the additional function of time and region to distribute economic resources on environmentally sustainable projects so that under conditions of uncertainty, financial and social results can be achieved in the long term. The UK financial sector was not particularly successful in terms of the functions mentioned in the past and has caused no or even negative benefits for some economic actors. Responsible for this is a philosophy of laissez -faire to the competent regulators who trusted that the market alone was able to set the prices right. The course of the economic crisis (2008 ff ) have shown that this assumption is wrong. It is the main task of regulating the financial markets, not just a few " bad apples " to sort out, but the systemic dysfunctions counter.