This book examines the opportunities which have opened up for financial cooperatives by the recent financial crisis, and explores the role of these institutions in promoting and sustaining local development.

Silvio Goglio is Associate Professor of Political Economy at the University of Trento, Italy, and Coordinator of the Research Area in Cooperatives and Development at Euricse, Trento, Italy. His research interests include collective efficiency and local governance, institutional changes and economic performance, local and cooperative credit and regional development.

Yiorgos Alexopoulos is Researcher at the Agricultural University of Athens, Greece and a Research Fellow at Euricse, Trento, Italy. He is head of the Scientific Committee of the Greek Institute of Cooperation and is an advisor to the Greek Association of Cooperative Banks on institutional and development issues. He has also been a member of the think tank of the European Association of Cooperative Banks since 2009. His research interests include rural and local development, social economy and local and cooperative credit.

Introduction: Cooperative Finance and Sustainable Local Development Yiorgos Alexopoulos and Silvio Goglio Part 1: Stakeholder-Oriented versus Profit-Maximizing Banks 1. Cooperative Banking: A Minskyan Perspective Elisabetta De Antoni 2. Governance and Performance: Reassessing the Pre-Crisis Situation of European Banks Giovanni Ferri, Panu Kalmi and Eeva Kerola 3. Competition and Market Power within the Italian Banking System Juan S. López and Stefano Di Colli 4. Cooperative Capital: Why our World needs it Alan J. Robb, James H. Smith and J. Tom Webb Part 2: From Cooperative Banks to Local Societies 5. The Case for Proactive Cooperative Banks in Local Development: Innovation, Growth, and Community Building in Almería, Spain Cynthia Giagnocavo, Luis Fernández-Revuelta Pérez and David Uclés Aguilera 6. Cooperative Banks and Community Development in Japan Rosario Laratta and Sachiko Nakagawa 7. Homo Dictyous Transforms Homo Oeconomicus: The Social Network Culture of Hellenic Cooperative Banking in Crete Theodoros A. Katerinakis 8. Innovative Approaches to Generating and Using Cooperative Capital: Observations from France and Germany Amélie Artis and Holger Blisse 9. Re-Discovering a Paradigm: The Promotion of Savings by Credit Unions within the UK Policy Context of Asset-Based Welfare Anita Marchesini and Paul A. Jones 10. Microfinance and Poverty Reduction in Bangladesh: Challenges and Opportunities Mokbul Morshed Ahmad 11. Microcredit: A Model for Activating Poverty Zones in Mexico David Eduardo de la Cerda Garza, Miriam del Rocío Arredondo Barrera, Morayma Lizbeth Martín González and María de la Luz Bravo Santillán 12. Conclusions: A Tale of Two Models Yiorgos Alexopoulos and Silvio Goglio