With the 2008 financial crisis still sending shockwaves through the US economy, debates over money are embedded in national politics and contemporary conceptions of the American dream. In Money and Banks in the American Political System, Kathryn C. Lavelle explores the complexity of the political institutions that surround finance, and traces the modern instability to the nexus between market innovation and regulation in a society that is wary of allowing business and state to interact and suspicious of any concentrated power in one political or economic institution.

Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy and Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford, will provide a keynote address on development aid and social entrepreneurship. Elizabeth L. Littlefield, President and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), will discuss leveraging the private sector's pivotal role in development. Leading scholars and practitioners will examine the role that social entrepreneurship can play in empowering the poor.

A recent study from Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington-based research and advocacy organization, found that $764.3 billion in illegal money flowed into and out of Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. GFI's director, Raymond Baker, discussed the findings and significance of the report, the mechanisms by which money is laundered into and out of the country, and some policy recommendations for curtailing the problems.

Most global citizens are well aware of the explosive growth of the Chinese economy. Indeed, China has famously become the "workshop of the world." Yet, while China watchers have shed much light on the country's internal dynamics--China's politics, its vast social changes, and its economic development--few have focused on how this increasingly powerful nation has become more active and assertive throughout the world. Check out the webcast here!