7.6 /10 1 Votes
Country United States Publication date December 2008 Pages 214 pp. Originally published December 2008 Genre Non-fiction | 3.8/5 Goodreads Language English Media type Print, e-book ISBN 978-0393337808 Publisher W. W. Norton & Company | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Subjects Financial crisis of 2007–2008, Economic history of the United States Similar Works by Paul Krugman, Non-fiction books, Economics books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 is a non-fiction book by American economist and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics Paul Krugman. The 2008 book is an updated version of his 1999 work, The Return of Depression Economics and draws parallels between the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Depression. Krugman writes a twice-weekly op-ed column for The New York Times and a blog named for his 2007 book The Conscience of a Liberal and teaches economics at Princeton University.
Overview
While The Return of Depression Economics explores depression economics through the lenses of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and Japan's Lost Decade, the 2008 update includes the liquidity crisis created in 2008 by misguided austerity measures. In the book, Krugman examines the history of market crashes, such as the Panic of 1907 and the mid-1990s Tequila Crash and demonstrates how banking systems expose themselves to too much risk, leading to the loss of confidence and, ultimately, panic and capital flight. Krugman suggests that policymakers "relearn the lessons our grandfathers were taught by the Great Depression" and prop up spending and enable broader access to credit.