This volume examines the relationship between banks and states, and how the traditional, political bank-state ties have been transformed. Banking on Markets brilliantly analyses how the USSR's collapse, European monetary union, and the 2008 global financial crisis have fundamentally transformed bank-state relations in Europe. Through careful argumentation and compelling evidence, Epstein demonstrates that this intensely political process has empowered market actors and made the European banking system more resilient, while at the same time reducing the ability of governments in the poorer European states to use their national banks as development tools to help them catch up with the rest of Europe. Banking on Markets raises challenging questions, provides often unsettling answers, and should be read by everyone concerned with the future of banking and finance in Europe.