Cover; Half Title; Series Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; List of figures; List of tables; Acknowledgements; List of acronyms; 1 Introduction: why financial cooperatives matter now; 1.1. Introduction; 1.2. Financialization, distribution, and the political economy of finance; 1.3. Financial cooperatives for egalitarian development; 1.4. Avoiding an idealisation trap; Bibliography; 2 Finance, distribution, and the economic objective of financial cooperatives; 2.1. Introduction; 2.2. Model setup; 2.3. Income and wealth distribution with credit rationing 2.4. Income and wealth distribution with financial cooperatives2.5. Financial cooperative economic objective function; 2.6. Concluding remarks; Bibliography; 3 Financial cooperatives and income inequality: empirical evidence; 3.1. Introduction; 3.2. Finance and income inequality; 3.3. Data and method; 3.4. Results; 3.5. Concluding remarks; Bibliography; 4 Political economy theory for financial cooperative development; 4.1. Introduction; 4.2. Political history of financial cooperatives; 4.3. A political economy theory of financial cooperatives; 4.4. Concluding remarks; Bibliography 5 Political institutions and financial cooperative development: empirical evidence5.1. Introduction; 5.2. Data and method; 5.3. Results and discussion; 5.4. Conclusion; Bibliography; 6 The origin and rationale for financial cooperative regulation in underdeveloped economies; 6.1. Introduction; 6.2. The historical origins of financial cooperative laws in underdeveloped economies; 6.3. Current models of financial cooperative laws; 6.4. Rationale for financial cooperative regulations; 6.5. Conclusion; Bibliography 7 Regulation, supervision, and deposit insurance for financial cooperatives: an empirical investigation7.1. Introduction; 7.2. Regulation, supervision, and deposit insurance for financial cooperatives; 7.3. Data and method; 7.4. Results and discussion; 7.5. Conclusion; Bibliography; Discussion and conclusions; Appendix; Bibliography; Index