Synopses & Reviews
The 2007-09 financial crisis and economic downturn inflicted considerable hardship on the U.S. population. This book argues that the financial crisis and ensuing recession reflected not just a malfunctioning of the financial system -- but also inequalities and insecurities in access to livelihoods that favor well-off groups and leave ordinary people shouldering undue burdens of downside risk. This book, a collection of original papers by leading social economists and scholars in related fields, examines social, distributional, and ethical dimensions of the downturn. It should be of broad interest to the social-science and economic-policy communities.
Review
"Unusual economic times call for going beyond the usual economics; this book does that; it provides a valuable contribution to the economic debate about the recent crisis and how to deal with it." --David Colander, CAJ Distinguished Professor of Economics, Middlebury College
"The contributors to this refreshingly accessible volume make clear that the destruction of livelihoods brought on by the Great Recession is not evenly shared. Our attention is drawn to where it deserves to be: on the human costs of failure to manage economies in a way that ensures broadly shared well-being and economic security." --Stephanie Seguino, Professor of Economics, University of Vermont
Synopsis
This book investigates three sets of questions raised by the economic downturn, corresponding to the three sections of the book. The first concerns issues of ethics and social responsibility in economic policymaking and in business and finance; how the costs of the downturn have fallen within the population -- in terms of lost incomes, lost jobs, declining wealth, unmanageable debt burdens, reductions in spending on necessities, lost homes, and other problems of insecurity and financial distress; and lastly: concerns the rise of unmet basic needs - for food, shelter and health care -- during the downturn.
Synopsis
This book investigates three questions raised by the financial crisis and economic downturn. Could the crisis and downturn have been averted had economic policymakers and business leaders considered ethical consequences of their actions? How have the costs of the downturn fallen within the population, in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and class? How has American society coped with problems of rising unmet needs for food, shelter, and health care? Answers to these questions illuminate key problems, yet also key strengths, in the structure and governance of the U.S. economy.
About the Author
Martha Starr is Associate Professor of Economics at American University. Previously she was a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Professor Starr is co-editor of the
Review of Social Economics journal and President-Elect of the Association for Social Economics. Her research interests include consumption, saving, wealth, macroeconomics, monetary policy, socially responsible consumption and investment, and social economics.
Table of Contents
List of contributors * Beyond the usual economics, Martha A. Starr * Part I. Ethics, Social Responsibility, and Economic Policy * The Economic Crisis and the Crisis in Economics
George DeMartino * The Financial Crash of 2008: An Illustrative Instance of the Separation of Risk from Reward in American Capitalism Robert E. Prasch * Rising Inequality and the Financial Crises of 1929 and 2008 Jon D. Wisman and Barton Baker * Inequality and its Discontents: The Real Causes and Consequences of the Crisis Steven Pressman * Weve Been Nudged: The Effects of the Downturn on Dignity and Responsibility Mark D. White * Part II. Distributional Effects of the Downturn * Race and Recession: A Comparison of the Economic Impact of the 1980s and 2007-09 Recessions on Non-College Educated Black and White Men * Niki Dickerson VonLockette * Who pays the price when housing bubbles burst? Evidence from the American Community Survey Cynthia Bansak and Martha Starr * Gender Equality in U.S. Labor Markets in the “Great Recession” of 2007-10
Caren Grown and Emcet Tas * Part III. Social Economy and the Economic Downturn: Communities, Needs and Capabilities * Recession and the social economy Martha A. Starr * Beyond the Wasteland: A Report from Detroit Bruce Pietrykowski * Teaching Financial Literacy in the Wake of the Financial Crisis Deborah M. Figart