As scholars and activists seek to define and promote greater corporate political responsibility (CPR), they will benefit from understanding practitioner perspectives and how executives are responding to rising scrutiny of their political influences, reputational risk and pressure from employees, customers and investors to get involved in civic, political, and societal issues. This chapter draws on firsthand conversations with practitioners, including executives in government affairs; sustainability; senior leadership; and diversity, equity and inclusion, during the launch of a university-based CPR initiative. I summarize practitioner motivations, interests, barriers and challenges related to engaging in conversations about CPR, as well as committing or acting to improve CPR. Following the summary, I present implications for further research and several possible paths forward, including leveraging practitioners’ value on accountability, sustaining external calls for transparency, strengthening awareness of systems, and reframing CPR as part of a larger dialogue around society’s “social contract.”

Earlier and contemporary authors had observed the systematic aspects involved in the use of money for the nation’s trade. Locke’s novelty lies in the fact that he observed those systemic connections solely from the perspective of economic phenomena; and ‘necessities’ and the necessity of money constituted the main tool through which he described the phenomena associated with the emerging monetary economy. Instead of making the classic theological reference to usury, Locke built the theoretical foundation and normativity of money on the system of trade and its necessities, and hence on the survival of the nation. In this way he was able to gloss over the earlier theological discourse.

Often when we think about investors we think about a singular heroic individual. This lends itself well to neoliberal ways of imagining people as individual economic agents. In this way of thinking, an entrepreneur with some amount of capital is able to heroically create a business due largely to their own drive, creativity, and hustle. What this accounting misses though, are the historical contexts and social resources that entrepreneurs draw on to make their businesses work. This is a problem too, if we imagine that individual entrepreneurial action will be adequate to pull people out of poverty or to right historical wrongs. In this chapter, Beresford takes us to South Africa to show the different resources that black and white entrepreneurs have when they start their businesses. Due to the legacy of apartheid, white entrepreneurs have access to more capital and deeper support networks that allow them to navigate the earlier, vulnerable stages of a business’s life. By contrast, many black entrepreneurs face a relatively resource poor environment for starting their businesses. Altogether, Beresford shows the limits of individualized thinking when it comes to entrepreneurs, and for using entrepreneurship to lift people out of poverty. The chapter also questions the theoretical assurance of neoliberalism that government should not intervene, but rather wait for the superior knowledge embedded in the market mechanisms to weed out the bad, and adequately increase the chances that good solutions flourish.

A key response to legitimacy concerns over investment arbitration has been to point to the contribution of investment treaties to significant increases in in-bound foreign investment. The authors return to this vexed question of whether treaties offer material benefits and the large literature on the topic. Through a mixed methods approach and heightened awareness of the synergies and tensions within and between methodological approaches, they: (1) analyse econometrically the impact of ISDS provisions on inbound FDI; (2) present new qualitative research on investor and host state practices and attitudes; and (3) argue that social psychological research on cultural risk cognition is useful for both framing and presenting research questions and findings. They conclude that whatever the results that emerge from empirical research findings, the form of presentation will determine whether they will be accepted by the public or fall victim to growing polarization in perceptions and positions.

Sustainable finance can be viewed as a political concept: it not only facilitates direct financial flows towards a low-carbon and inclusive economy aligned with Europe’s environmental objectives but it also serves as an indicator of how citizens’ personal savings are used. Additionally, it helps to re-legitimise the financial sector for those still outraged by the 2008 financial crisis and its ensuing consequences. To gain back the public’s trust, asset managers will have to do more than just stamp sustainable finance labels on traditional funds. They are going to have to explain their objectives and integration strategy for ESG criteria in financial management. They will also need to explain how they evaluate the financial impact of risks, such as climate change, as well as how they select ESG performance indicators alongside standard financial performance. The European Commission launched its new Green Deal to transform Europe’s economy and shape it for a sustainable future and has included a sustainable finance action plan into this project for the implementation of a Just Transition. The main challenge now is to share this objective with citizens in clear words.

Chapter 12 is the conclusion of the book. The chapter starts by arguing that the bubble triangle can explain why the cryptocurrency bubble occurred in 2017. It then asks whether the bubble triangle is a good predictive tool. The answer to that question is yes, but bubbles are still difficult to predict because the sparks are difficult to discern. The bubble triangle is also able to predict which bubbles will be destructive (politically sparked bubbles with high bank lending) and which will be useful (technology sparked bubbles with low leverage). The chapter then moves on to look at what governments could do to prevent bubbles. However, since political bubbles are often created because they are in the government’s interest, governments cannot be relied upon to take these measures. The question then arises as to whether the news media can alert investors to the presence of bubbles. The answer to this question very much depends on whether they have the incentive to do so, and this incentive appears to be diminishing over time. The chapter concludes by arguing that investors need to build broad mental models, which include history, if they are to have any chance of predicting bubbles.

In international investment law, investor-claimants often have recourse to human rights case law in order to support a certain interpretation of investment protection standards, such as denial of justice and the prohibition on expropriation of private property without compensation. What is rarer, however, is that respondent States may invoke their human rights obligations in order to formulate a defence of their conduct towards a particular investor, or even to formulate a counterclaim. After briefly outlining investors’ reliance on human rights rules to support their claims, this chapter investigates the potential of invoking human rights norms by respondent States in order to persuade a tribunal that, first, it does not have jurisdiction; secondly, no investment protection standard has been violated; or, thirdly, damages ought to be calculated in a certain manner. Subsequently, three specific issues that may complicate the invocation of human rights norms in investor-State dispute settlement are examined: the difference between human rights obligations and objectives; State acquiescence or complicity to human rights violations; and human rights counterclaims.

In financial regulation, regulated entities are required to prepare disclosures that detail the risks of their transactions. However, these regulatory requirements sometimes neglect to ensure that financial entities have strong incentives to understand the risks themselves, much less ensure the disclosed risks are comprehensible to others. This chapter applies the concept of comprehension asymmetries to financial regulation and uncovers ways that the existing laws and rules tolerate and sometimes exacerbate wilfull ignorance and incomprehensible disclosures. The chapter closes with suggestions for reform.

Consumer protection law is notoriously imbalanced with respect to the superior ability of sellers to process information as compared to their customers. Yet despite the resulting comprehension asymmetries, the design of consumer contract law and disclosure requirements regularly fail to encourage sellers to communicate meaningfully with the target audience. This chapter explores how consumer protection law tacitly encourages incomprehensibility and proposes reforms which would provide increased incentives for meaningful communication between buyers and sellers.