The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis

The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis
Author: Roger Berkowitz
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2012-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0823249603

By reaching beyond "how" the crisis happened to "why" the crisis happened, the authors provide fresh thinking about how to respond

Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States

Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States
Author: George Soros
Publisher: Public Affairs
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2012-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1610391527

Addresses the need for the United States to restructure the banking and financial system, anticipates the globalization of the crisis, and calls for international action.

From Financial Crisis to Global Recovery

From Financial Crisis to Global Recovery
Author: Padma Desai
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 023115786X

This book examines the factors leading to America's recent recession, describing the monetary policy, tax practices, subprime mortgages and lack of regulation that contributed to the crisis. The book also considers the the prospects for economic recovery in North America, Europe, Asia, and South America as well as the extent of U.S. and EU regulatory proposals.

Global Waves of Debt

Global Waves of Debt
Author: M. Ayhan Kose
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2021-03-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464815453

The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation over the past 50 years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging market and developing economies. During the current wave, which started in 2010, the increase in debt in these economies has already been larger, faster, and broader-based than in the previous three waves. Current low interest rates mitigate some of the risks associated with high debt. However, emerging market and developing economies are also confronted by weak growth prospects, mounting vulnerabilities, and elevated global risks. A menu of policy options is available to reduce the likelihood that the current debt wave will end in crisis and, if crises do take place, will alleviate their impact.

What Caused the Financial Crisis

What Caused the Financial Crisis
Author: Jeffrey Friedman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2011-06-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 081220493X

The deflation of the subprime mortgage bubble in 2006-7 is widely agreed to have been the immediate cause of the collapse of the financial sector in 2008. Consequently, one might think that uncovering the origins of subprime lending would make the root causes of the crisis obvious. That is essentially where public debate about the causes of the crisis began—and ended—in the month following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the 502-point fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in mid-September 2008. However, the subprime housing bubble is just one piece of the puzzle. Asset bubbles inflate and burst frequently, but severe worldwide recessions are rare. What was different this time? In What Caused the Financial Crisis leading economists and scholars delve into the major causes of the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression and, together, present a comprehensive picture of the factors that led to it. One essay examines the role of government regulation in expanding home ownership through mortgage subsidies for impoverished borrowers, encouraging the subprime housing bubble. Another explores how banks were able to securitize mortgages by manipulating criteria used for bond ratings. How this led to inaccurate risk assessments that could not be covered by sufficient capital reserves mandated under the Basel accords is made clear in a third essay. Other essays identify monetary policy in the United States and Europe, corporate pay structures, credit-default swaps, banks' leverage, and financial deregulation as possible causes of the crisis. With contributions from Richard A. Posner, Vernon L. Smith, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and John B. Taylor, among others, What Caused the Financial Crisis provides a cogent, comprehensive, and credible explanation of why the crisis happened. It will be an essential resource for scholars and students of finance, economics, history, law, political science, and sociology, as well as others interested in the financial crisis and the nature of modern capitalism and regulation.

The Great Inflation

The Great Inflation
Author: Michael D. Bordo
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 545
Release: 2013-06-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226066959

Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.

The Panic of 1907

The Panic of 1907
Author: Robert F. Bruner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2009-04-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0470452587

"Before reading The Panic of 1907, the year 1907 seemed like a long time ago and a different world. The authors, however, bring this story alive in a fast-moving book, and the reader sees how events of that time are very relevant for today's financial world. In spite of all of our advances, including a stronger monetary system and modern tools for managing risk, Bruner and Carr help us understand that we are not immune to a future crisis." —Dwight B. Crane, Baker Foundation Professor, Harvard Business School "Bruner and Carr provide a thorough, masterly, and highly readable account of the 1907 crisis and its management by the great private banker J. P. Morgan. Congress heeded the lessons of 1907, launching the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to prevent banking panics and foster financial stability. We still have financial problems. But because of 1907 and Morgan, a century later we have a respected central bank as well as greater confidence in our money and our banks than our great-grandparents had in theirs." —Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets, and Professor of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University "A fascinating portrayal of the events and personalities of the crisis and panic of 1907. Lessons learned and parallels to the present have great relevance. Crises and panics are as much a part of our future as our past." —John Strangfeld, Vice Chairman, Prudential Financial "Who would have thought that a hundred years after the Panic of 1907 so much remained to be written about it? Bruner and Carr break significant new ground because they are willing to do the heavy lifting of combing through massive archival material to identify and weave together important facts. Their book will be of interest not only to banking theorists and financial historians, but also to business school and economics students, for its rare ability to teach so clearly why and how a panic unfolds." —Charles Calomiris, Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions, Columbia University, Graduate School of Business

Essays on the Great Depression

Essays on the Great Depression
Author: Ben S. Bernanke
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2009-01-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400820278

From the Nobel Prize–winning economist and former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, a landmark book that provides vital lessons for understanding financial crises and their sometimes-catastrophic economic effects As chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve during the Global Financial Crisis, Ben Bernanke helped avert a greater financial disaster than the Great Depression. And he did so by drawing directly on what he had learned from years of studying the causes of the economic catastrophe of the 1930s—work for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize. This influential work is collected in Essays on the Great Depression, an important account of the origins of the Depression and the economic lessons it teaches.

All the Devils Are Here

All the Devils Are Here
Author: Bethany McLean
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2011-08-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1101551054

Hailed as "the best business book of 2010" (Huffington Post), this New York Times bestseller about the 2008 financial crisis brings the devastation of the Great Recession to life. As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers? According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, many devils helped bring hell to the economy. All the Devils Are Here goes back several decades to weave the hidden history of the financial crisis in a way no previous book has done. It explores the motivations of everyone from famous CEOs, cabinet secretaries, and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers, analysts, and Wall Street traders. It delves into the powerful American mythology of homeownership. And it proves that the crisis ultimately wasn't about finance at all; it was about human nature. Just as McLean's The Smartest Guys in the Room was hailed as the best Enron book on a crowded shelf, so will All the Devils Are Here be remembered for finally making sense of the financial meltdown and its consequences.

What Have We Learned?

What Have We Learned?
Author: George A. Akerlof
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2014-05-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262027348

Top economists consider how to conduct policy in a world where previous beliefs have been shattered by the recent financial and economic crises. Since 2008, economic policymakers and researchers have occupied a brave new economic world. Previous consensuses have been upended, former assumptions have been cast into doubt, and new approaches have yet to stand the test of time. Policymakers have been forced to improvise and researchers to rethink basic theory. George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate and one of this volume's editors, compares the crisis to a cat stuck in a tree, afraid to move. In April 2013, the International Monetary Fund brought together leading economists and economic policymakers to discuss the slowly emerging contours of the macroeconomic future. This book offers their combined insights. The editors and contributors—who include the Nobel Laureate and bestselling author Joseph Stiglitz, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen, and the former Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer—consider the lessons learned from the crisis and its aftermath. They discuss, among other things, post-crisis questions about the traditional policy focus on inflation; macroprudential tools (which focus on the stability of the entire financial system rather than of individual firms) and their effectiveness; fiscal stimulus, public debt, and fiscal consolidation; and exchange rate arrangements.