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Do you know where your money is? More importantly, do you know what your money is doing? Most of us feel confident that we know what money is. But few of us feel confident in taking responsibility for what our money does. We hand over the power of money to banks and mainstream finance with real, often damaging consequences for people and planet. A unique collaboration between an academic and a practitioner, this book tells the story of money from ancient Athens to the Bitcoin revolution to explain how crowdfunding is the way for people to reclaim the power of their money in pursuit of a fairer and greener society.

Affordability is, perhaps, the greatest housing problem facing households today, both in the UK and internationally. Even though most households are now well housed, hardship is disproportionately concentrated among low-income and younger households. Our failure to deal with their problems is what makes housing so frustrating. But, to improve outcomes, we have to understand the complex economic and political forces which underlie their continued prevalence. There are no costless solutions, but there are new policy directions that can be explored in addition to those that have dominated in recent years. The first, analytic, part of the book considers the factors that determine house prices and rents, household formation and tenure, housing construction and the roles played by housing finance and taxation. The second part turns to examine the impact of past policy and the possibilities for improvement - discussing supply and the impact of planning regulation, supply subsidies, subsidies to low-income tenants and attempts to increase home ownership. Rather than advocating a particular set of policies, the aim is to consider the balance of policies; the constraints under which housing policy operates; what can realistically be achieved; the structural changes that would need to occur; and the significant sacrifices that would have to be made by some groups if there are to be improvements for others. Our emphasis is on the UK but throughout the book we also draw on international experience and our conclusions have relevance to analysts and policy makers across the developed world.

Innovation is generally considered to be the antidote to economic stagnation. But while the coupling of ‘responsible' and 'innovation’ has been much discussed, that of 'responsible stagnation' has gone largely unexplored. In this book, we take this concept seriously as a means to question the political economy of science, technology and innovation, both as policy and as process, and the problems which arise from unquestioned emphasis on innovation as the means to increase GDP. The book argues that examining what 'responsible stagnation' might contribute opens new space in the growing global discussion about RI, incorporating innovation in non-market oriented processes, goods and services which have strong societal benefit but do not necessarily contribute to GDP. It examines the conundrum of diminishing productivity returns and increased environmental and social hazards associated with attempts to increase GDP, and how taking a growth-agnostic approach contributes to recalibrating innovation around responsibility as its focal point. Drawing on insights from ecological and steady state economics, Science and Technology Studies, and social innovation across the world, this interdisciplinary group of scholars questions how the growth paradigm shapes and limits the innovation space, and how decoupling innovation from growth points toward myriad possibilities for facilitating human well-being in more environmentally and socially responsible ways.

One of the most important manuscripts surviving from thirteenth-century England, the corpus of documents known as the Hundred Rolls for Cambridge have been incomplete until the recent discovery of an additional roll. This invaluable volume replaces the previous inaccurate transcription by the record commission of 1818 and provides new translations and additional appendices. Shedding new light on important facets of business activity in thirteenth-century Cambridge, this volume makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of the early phases of capitalism. This unique text will be of interest to anyone working in the fields of economic and business history, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and medieval studies. A research monograph based on recently discovered historical documents, Compassionate Capitalism: Business and Community in Medieval England, by Casson et al, is also now available from Bristol University Press.

This book examines the evolution of compassionate capitalism in medieval England, using a unique and comprehensive source of information, the Cambridge Hundred Rolls. It demonstrates how compassionate capitalism developed through the bequest of rental income on property to charitable and religious institutions, such as hospitals, abbeys and friaries. This rental income was generated by the dramatic growth of an urban property market, through which wealthy merchants invested the profits of trade in property development. Compassionate capitalism was a driving force in the medieval economy from the mid-1200s to the Black Death of 1348. The Cambridge Hundred Rolls record a comprehensive survey of the town in 1279, profiling property location, ownership and use, the gifting of rents and the transmission of property between generations. It identifies over 30 leading family dynasties and the factors behind their rise and decline. By synthesising this information it is possible to reconstruct the economic topography of the town and to compare the occupational structure of different parishes. This leads to a fundamental revaluation of the topography of medieval Cambridge and the role of property markets in urban development. It also reveals the influence of religious teaching on the management of economic assets by family dynasties.

This edited collection provides the first comprehensive study of the rise of food charity across Europe. Bringing together leading researchers across the continent, this collection explores the driving forces behind this phenomenon and its implications into the future, from a social policy perspective. The book incorporates cases studies from Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom. Each empirical case study chapter explores: the histories of food charity in the national context; key changes in social policy and their relationship to food charity; and the implications for social justice. The result is the first book to offer a systematic comparative study of the rise of food charity across Europe. It provides urgently needed evidence on these trends which will be of use to academics, policy makers and practitioners who are grappling with the practical implications of these phenomena.

With welfare to work programmes under intense scrutiny, this book reviews a wide range of existing and future policies across Europe. Seventeen contributors provide case studies and legal, sociological and philosophical perspectives from around the continent, building a rich picture of welfare to work policies and their impact. They show how many schemes do not adequately address social rights and lived experiences, and consider alternatives based on theories of non-domination. For anyone interested in the justice of welfare to work, this book is an important step along the path towards more fair and adequate legislation.

This book is the first academic study of the profession of fundraising in the UK. Fundraising is an essential yet largely invisible career, despite its growing importance during a period of extensive public spending cuts and growing reliance on charities. There is a growing body of work focused on donors, such that the identity and motivation of those who provide resources are increasingly understood. Yet little is known about the motivation and characteristics of those who ask for voluntary support, despite almost every donation being solicited. As it is not possible to understand charitable giving without accounting for the role of fundraising, this book provides the first empirically-grounded and theorised account of the identity, characteristics and motivation of fundraisers in the UK. Based on original data collected during a 3-year study of over 1,200 fundraisers, the book describes the complexity and subtlety of their everyday practices and makes an argument that the ‘new fundraisers’ have recently emerged in a necessarily complementary relationship with the far more widely discussed phenomenon of the ‘new philanthropists’. As well as a corrective to the lack of meaningful academic interest in this subject, this book is also a response to the growing hostility to fundraising in both the public and political spheres. It provides a better understanding of this important aspect of social life, and challenges the illogical position whereby charities are widely admired, but the people who keep them in business are not.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations were deliberately ambitious, and they have been the subject of much debate. Now, with the 2015 target date for many of the goals having passed, it is time to assess the goals and attempt to determine whether they were effective. Gathering leading scholars from a range of backgrounds and regions, this book offers an in-depth exploration of that question, with the aim of better understanding the effects of the MDGs and learning from them for future policy decisions. It examines the impact of the MDGs on countries and regions such as Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, and discusses a range of topics including anti-poverty transfer programmes, sustainable development, and the role of women in economic development.