For its many qualities, there is one main weakness in the book that I would like to discuss in this review. This weakness lies in how the author characterizes “credit regimes” and the way in which the structures of the domestic financial system shape people's access to credit. To explain the level of credit permissiveness in a given political economy, Wiedemann builds on the dichot- omy between market-based and bank-based financial systems and conceives credit allocation between either households or businesses as a zero-sum game. This dichotomy is no longer accu- rate to depict contemporary financial systems in advanced political economies, and thus fails to identify the workings and determinants of credit creation and allocation. I will develop this point below.