Public banks : decarbonisation, definancialisation and democratisation

"Public banks are neither ultimately good nor bad but made and remade by contentious social forces. They are dynamic institutions. Set against the backdrop of financing a global green & just transition, this first single-authored academic book on public banks explores six case studies - the China Development Bank, the Nordic Investment Bank, the NABARD (India), Bank of North Dakota (US), the KfW (Germany), and the Banco Popular y de Desarrollo Comunal (Costa Rica). It evidences how public banks have acquired the representative structures, financial capacity, institutional knowledge, collaborative networks, and geographical reach needed to tackle challenges like decarbonisation, definancialisation, and democratisation. These six cases are hardly isolated. There are over 900 diverse public banks worldwide holding trillions in financial assets. None of them are without contradictions, pulled as they are between contending public and private interests in class-divided society. Yet it is because public banks are dynamic and socially contested institutions that they can be made to serve the public good."