The Blockchain Alternative: Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy and Economic Theory

ISBN-13: 9781484226735 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 248 str.

Kariappa Bheemaiah

Opis

Examine what would happen if we were to deploy blockchain technology at the sovereign level and use it to create a decentralized cashless economy. This book explains how finance and economics work today, and how the convergence of various technologies related to the financial sector can help us find solutions to problems, such as excessive debt creation, banks getting too big to fail, and shadow banking. The Blockchain Alternative offers sensible corrections to outdated and incorrect dogmas, such as the efficient markets hypothesis and rational expectations theory. You'll also be introduced to universal basic income, the consequences of going cashless, why complexity economics needs to be understood and what kinds of tools and theories you'll need to redefine the existing definition of capitalism. While the book does discuss technologies and methods that are primed for our future, a number of references are made to economic history and the works of great thinkers from a different era. You'll see how the blockchain can be used to deploy solutions that were devised in the past, but which can serve as the antidote to our current economic malaises. You'll discover that what is required today is not an adaptation of the old theories, but a new methodology that is suited to this new era. Without undertaking such an endeavor, one will always be burdened with a definition of capitalism that is out of kilter with the evolution of our digital humanity. What would this mean to monetary and fiscal policy, market structure and our current understanding of economics? More importantly would we need to change our current understanding of capitalism? And if we were to change our perceptions, what would the future version look like? This book answers these questions, and analyses some of the most pertinent issues of our generation. What You'll Learn

• Examine fractional banking, debt, and the financialization of assets
  
• Gain a firm understanding of the "too big to fail" theory, smart contracts, and Fintech
  
• Review economics and agent-based modelling
  
• Use the blockchain and complexity economics to rethink economics and capitalistic systems
  

Who This Book Is For
The primary audience is bankers and other finance professionals, policy makers, and students of finance and economics. The secondary audience is anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the current financial system, the blockchain, and the future of capitalism.
Praise for The Blockchain Alternative..".a bold and pioneering effort to make sense of how emerging digital technologies might be used to reshape public policies, including macroeconomic and social policies, in basic ways. Everyone interested in this very important emerging question should read this book."- Dr. Sanjay G. Reddy, Associate Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research and Research Associate of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University."Writing on blockchain today is analogous to writing about the internet, before it became massively distributed. The book pushes us to think about the quantum leap that this technology may infer to our capitalist model, if scaled at the pace described by the book. Written with the support of strong empirical models but also with an open mind towards the future, this is a must read for anyone interested in becoming part of the new economic infrastructure"- Dr. Mark Esposito, Harvard University's Division of Continuing Education & Judge Business School, University of Cambridge"With a rigorously balanced dosage of versatility and rationale we are allured into a multifaceted trajectory across ingrained yet functionally arcane economic models, only to plunge into a conceptually revolutionary realm which irreversibly stimulates us into envisaging a fascinating novel scheme of world order." - Ioana Surpateanu, Political Adviser to the European Parliament"If there is only one book that I am reading on how blockchain is going to change our lives, it will have to be "The Blockchain Alternative."- Dr. Terence Tse, Associate Professor of Finance, ESCP Europe Business School

Recenzje

"The book is based on a clear understanding of systemic links established behind today's economic scene, an unsophisticated approach to blockchain technology, and diverse multidisciplinary documentation. A small part of the bibliographical material is presented in the text as large extracts from academic papers or official documents and policymaker or business representative statements. As a result, the work is easy to understand by a large audience and also a must-read for those who study or work in the financial sector." (Computing Reviews, October, 2017)

O autorze

Kariappa Bheemaiah is a researcher, visiting lecturer, and technology consultant based in Paris. His articles and interviews on the Blockchain and the effects of technological change on society have been published in Harvard Business Review, WIRED magazine and Les Echos, and elsewhere.

Kary is currently the head of research at Uchange, a digital transformation consultancy, a research associate with Cambridge Judge Business School, a visiting lecturer at ESCP Europe and GEM, and a mentor and blogger at StartupBootCamp. Prior to this, he worked as a market intelligence analyst and financial controller in a number of international companies and also as an economic researcher for an EU project.

He is also a public speaker and gave his first TEDx Talk, “The evolution of currency,” in 2014. He will be giving his second TEDx Talk, “Rethinking Capitalism with the Blockchain,” in May 2017.

Blurb

This book shows how distributed ledger technologies, especially the blockchain, are transforming the finance sector in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. It surveys the measures, tools, and theories being developed to create a new framework of monetary economics and capitalism. Kariappa Bheemaiah, a technology strategy consultant, analyzes and compares the traditional and emergent paradigms of finance and monetary economics.

Blockchain: Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy and Economic Theory reviews the workings and failings of the current dominant system of fractional-reserve banking and examines the emerging technologies that are convergently challenging the status quo by defragmenting the financial sector. Readers learn how the new tools and models of econophysics and complexity economics can be applied to cashless systems to control excessive debt, systemic risk, and economic pollution.