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E-book
Author Haufler, Virginia, 1957- author.

Title Dangerous commerce : insurance and the management of international risk / Virginia Haufler
Published Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1997

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Description 1 online resource (1 volume)
Contents Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. The Search for a Sure Thing: Risk and International Political Economy -- 2. Creating an International Risks Insurance Regime, 1870-1914 -- 3. Testing the Limits of Private Protection, 1917-1939 -- 4. Redefining Risk and Responsibility, 1979-1989 -- 5. The Infrastructure of Global Capitalism -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index
Summary As businesses search increasingly for opportunities beyond their national borders, they face the risk that political change in other countries will jeopardize their efforts. Anything from minor shifts in regulations to sudden revolutions can threaten business investment, trade, and credit. Virginia Haufler shows that a crucial factor in the expansion of global markets has been the private sector's creation of a sophisticated insurance industry to redistribute the risks entailed in foreign commerce, a privately constructed safety net for international transactions. Haufler believes that the network of relationships and institutions established by the insurers constituted a privately led regime for the management of international risk. She analyzes political risks insurance during three periods of substantial uncertainty: the era from the turn of the century to the beginning of World War I, when British global power began to wane; the interwar years, leading up to the collapse of world trade and a second world war; and the 'debt crisis' decade of the 1980s. Public and private involvement in supplying insurance against international risks has varied depending on demand, the availability of resources, and the norms of what can be insured. As the scale and complexity of risks have expanded, Haufler suggests, responsibility has shifted from commercial insurers first to the state and now to multilateral institutions
Notes In English
Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on March 11, 2020)
Subject Risk (Insurance) -- History
International trade -- History
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Commerce.
International trade
Risk (Insurance)
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781501734939
1501734938