The first book-length treatment to conclusively demonstrate the link between income inequality and the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession Prevailing economic theory attributes the 2008 crash and the Great Recession that followed to low interest rates, relaxed borrowing standards, and the housing price bubble. After careful analyses of statistical evidence, however, Matthew Drennan discovered that income inequality was the decisive factor behind the crisis. Pressured to keep up consumption in the face of flat or declining incomes, Americans leveraged their home equity to take on excessive debt. The collapse of the housing market left this debt unsupported, causing a domino effect throughout the economy. Drennan also found startling similarities in consumer behavior in the years leading to both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Offering an economic explanation of a phenomenon described by prominent observers including Thomas Piketty, Jacob Hacker, Robert Kuttner, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz, Drennan's evenhanded analysis disproves dominant theories of consumption and draws much-needed attention to the persisting problem of income inequality.

This book develops a unified treatment of the income distribution-capital-value problems with respect to actual economies, and then gradually turns to the issues of effective demand and capitalist accumulation fluctuations from both political economy and economic policy perspectives. That treatment, on the one hand, places produced means of production, positive profits, and capital accumulation at the centre of the analysis and, on the other hand, is analytically based on the modern control theory. Hence, the authors' investigation is concerned with input-output representations of actual single and joint production, heterogeneous labour, and open economies; zeroes in on the characteristic value distributions of the system matrices; and, finally, derives meaningful theoretical results consistent with the empirical evidence, and vice versa. The main topics addressed are the uncontrollable/unobservable aspects of the real-world economies, the powerful low-order spectral approximations and reconstructions of the inter-industry structure of production-value-distributive variables relationships, the critical-constructive appraisal of both "mainstream" and "radical" theories of value, the matrix demand multipliers and demand-switching policies in heterogeneous capital worlds, and the circular inter-actions amongst income distribution, effective demand, accumulation, and technical conditions of production. Written on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the publication of both Piero Sraffa's Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities and Rudolf E. Kalman's paper "On the general theory of control systems", this book provides a consistent and comprehensive framework for theoretical, empirical, and economic policy research.

This book makes an original and significant contribution to Keynesian macroeconomics. The IS-LM model is a basic workhorse of Keynesian macroeconomics. However, its financial aspects are extremely rudimentary and the link between the real and the financial sector is extremely tenuous. Hence, neither the IS-LM model nor IS-LM-based models can be applied to the major economic issues facing today's world. This book develops alternative models in the Keynesian tradition that incorporate financial institutions and make explicit the intimate link between the processes of generation of income, saving, credit and expenditure. It subsequently uses these models to address the major current macroeconomic issues that India and the rest of the world are confronted with. In the Indian context, it focuses on the issues of unemployment, growth, recession, bank performance, banking sector reforms and corruption. It also seeks to identify the causes of economic crises in Greece and the US. The analysis reveals a common trend in the economies considered here: the policy framework within which they function is recessionary, exploitative and fosters unemployment, inequality and poverty. Further, this framework is leading these economies farther away from the goal that every civilized society should strive to achieve, namely, providing all citizens with suitably gainful jobs and adequate access to quality food, clothing, shelter, education and health care. The book seeks to identify the cause of this malady, and puts forward policies to remedy it. It thus contains takeaways for academia, think tanks as well as policy makers.

This book collects expert opinions, research, and risk assessments from within the Chinese financial policy establishment on prospects for the internationalization of the renminbi as a reserve currency around the world. As China's economy diversifies in the acquisition of global assets, the renminbi may partially displace the dollar or yen as a reserve currency, with unpredictable and profound potential consequences. This book, presenting for the first time in English, the Chinese perspective on the internationalization of the Chinese currency will be of great value to central bankers, financiers, and students of international finance.

This textbook presents all major topics in international monetary theory, foreign exchange markets, international financial management and investment analysis. It focuses on real-world problems in the sense that it provides guidance on how to solve policy issues as well as how to complete financial assignments across the globe. This in turn helps readers gain an understanding of the theory and refine the framework. This third edition of the book incorporates three new chapters, and most of the chapters from the second edition have been updated to integrate new material, data, and/or the recent developments in the areas. The book can be used in graduate and advanced undergraduate programs in international or global finance, international monetary economics, and international financial management. It is also a valuable reference book for researchers in these areas.

This book presents selected papers from the 23rd Eurasia Business and Economics Society (EBES) Conference, held in Madrid, Spain. While the theoretical and empirical papers presented cover diverse areas of economics and finance in different geographic regions, the main focus is on the latest research concerning international trade, public economics, and regional studies. The book also includes studies on the economics of innovation, inequality and tourism.

This book sheds new light on if and why, between 2009 and 2015, European governments succeeded or failed in initiating and actually realizing some of the farthest-reaching austerity plans in modern history. The author analyzes the economic and political context and the underlying causes of austerity and economic adjustment packages during the Euro crisis. In doing so, he shows that austerity has its roots in an institutional mismatch between capitalist diversity in the Eurozone on the one hand, and an ill-conceived common economic regime on the other. In this context, austerity trumped politics, and even democracy itself. The book will appeal to scholars of political science and comparative political economy, as well as governmental policymakers and practitioners in the finance sector.

Once we paid for things with bills, coins, or checks. Today we pay with zeroes and ones --digital entries on credit and debit cards, or electronic messages sent over the Internet. In "Moving Money," distinguished analysts explore this trend, its development and likely future, and the ramifications of this transformation.

This is a book about money as a medium of exchange --in the past, in the present, but particularly in the future. What forms has money taken over the years? Moreover, how have those means of payment changed in recent years, and how will they develop in the future? And what (if anything) should policymakers do to facilitate those changes, or at least allow them to develop and mature? Brookings economists Robert E. Litan and Martin Neil Baily and a distinguished group of experts dissect these issues and peer into the future of consumer payments.

The landscape of the consumer payments industry will be shaped at least in part by public policies. Historically, governments have had monopolies on the manufacture of money. Any form of payment clearly requires trust on the part of both the seller and the buyer, and the government must establish and enforce laws to secure this relationship. More controversial is the issue of whether, and to what extent, government is also needed to protect the market in private sector payments systems.

Why do these issues matter? The payments industry is a large and important sector of developed economies. In the United States, private-sector payments providers generate approximately $280 billion a year in revenue, while the government invests substantial resources into making money (minting coins and printing bills) or moving it (via checks and various electronic transfers). And the way we pay for things influences our purchases --what we spend money on, how much we spend, and where we spend it. Thus the future of consumer payments is intertwined with the health of national economies.

Contributors: Martin Neil Baily (Brookings), Thomas P. Brown (O'Melveny & Myers), Kenneth Chenault (American Express Company), Vijay D'Silva (McKinsey and Company), Nicholas Economides (New York University), David S. Evans (Market Platform Dynamics), Robert E. Litan (Brookings and Kaufmann Foundation), Drazen Prelec (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Richard Schmalensee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Based on lectures given as part of The Stone Lectures in Economics, this book discusses the problem of formulating monetary policy in practice, under the uncertain circumstances which characterize the real world. The first lecture highlights the limitations of decision rules suggested by the academic literature and recommends an approach involving, first, a firm reliance on the few fundamental and robust results of monetary economics and, secondly, a pragmatic attitude to policy implementation, taking into consideration lessons from central banking experience. The second lecture revisits Milton Friedman's questions about the effects of active stabilization policies on business cycle fluctuations. It explores the implications of a simple model where the policy maker has imperfect knowledge about potential output and the private sector forms expectations according to adaptive learning. This lecture shows that imperfect knowledge limits the scope for active stabilization policy and strengthens the case for conservatism.

This timely text examines the role that financial markets and institutions play in modern macroeconomics. Over the last couple of decades there has been a fair amount of research on microeconomic models of market failure and the impact of such failures on business cycles and other macroeconomic phenomena. Recessions and depressions are examined afresh in detail. Financial panics and meltdowns like the currency crashes of the 1990s are examined for macroeconomic impact and recoveries. Last but not least, the current Bush Crash of 07-08 is discussed as it has unfolded, including the bank run and demise of the Northern Rock bank in the UK. The inexpensive paperback version can be used as a supplement to Money & Banking and Intermediate Macro courses, since the text assumes knowledge of only simple macroeconomic/microeconomic principles.

This book presents a new approach to the valuation of capital asset investments and investment decision-making. Starting from simple premises and working logically through three basic elements (capital, income, and cash flow), it guides readers on an interdisciplinary journey through the subtleties of accounting and finance, explaining how to correctly measure a project's economic profitability and efficiency, how to assess the impact of investment policy and financing policy on shareholder value creation, and how to design reliable, transparent, and logically consistent financial models. The book adopts an innovative pedagogical approach, based on a newly developed accounting-and-finance-engineering system, to help readers gain a deeper understanding of the accounting and financial magnitudes, learn about new analytical tools, and develop the necessary skills to practically implement them. This diverse approach to capital budgeting allows a sophisticated economic analysis in both absolute terms (values) and relative terms (rates of return), and is applicable to a wide range of economic entities, including real assets and financial assets, engineering designs and manufacturing schemes, corporate-financed and project-financed transactions, privately-owned projects and public investments, individual projects and firms. As such, this book is a valuable resource for a broad audience, including scholars and researchers, industry practitioners, executives, and managers, as well as students of corporate finance, managerial finance, engineering economics, financial management, management accounting, operations research, and financial mathematics. It features more than 180 guided examples, 50 charts and figures and over 160 explanatory tables that help readers grasp the new concepts and tools. Each chapter starts with an abstract and a list of the skills readers can expect to gain, and concludes with a list of key points summarizing the content.

Reexamining Economic and Political Reforms in Russia, 1985-2000: Generations, Ideas, and Changes analyzes the impact of generational changes and ideational changes on major political and economic reforms conducted in Russia during the late twentieth century. This book examines how the policy agenda was shaped by the ideas of the generations' representatives for the sixtiers and seventiers. Representatives of the generation of sixtiers conducted reforms from 1985 to 1991 and invested major efforts in political liberalization but did not pay enough attention to economic reforms. On the other hand, the reformers from the generation of seventiers, who were in charge of policy making from 1991 to 1998, were genuinely oriented toward market building but rather insensitive to the democratization of the political regime. This book explores how these differences in ideational agendas produced inconsistent and controversial outcomes from both stages of reforms. As a consequence, Russia only partially implemented the idea of market economic reforms, while the process of political reforms resulted in the rise of new authoritarianism.

This book presents a selection of contributions on the timely topic of structural reforms in Western economies, written by experts from central banks, the International Monetary Fund, and leading universities. It includes latest research on the impacts of structural reforms on the market economy, especially on the labor market, and investigates the results of collective bargaining in theory and practice. The book also comprises case studies of structural reforms. A literature survey on the topic serves as a valuable source for further research. The book is written by and targeted at both academics and policy makers.

This book reviews techniques and tools that can be used to evaluate the poverty and distributional impact of economic policy choices. It describes the most robust techniques and tools now available from the simplest to the most complex and identifies best practices. The tools reviewed here help quantify the trade-offs and consequences of economic policies that affect countries through various channels. Each chapter addresses a specific evaluation technique and its applications, and household survey data are used for descriptions of economic welfare distribution. The focus is on the micro level in the first part of the book, and links between macro modeling and the microeconomic distribution of economic welfare are the focus in the last five chapters."

This book discusses ideas for stakeholders to develop strategies to access and use financial products and services such as deposits, loans, and fund transfer mechanism, insurance, payment services, and intermediaries, distribution channels at economical prices in order to cater to the needs of the poor and underprivileged people. Financial inclusion ensures ease of access, availability, and usage of the financial products and services to all the sections of the society. The book will help in recognizing the role of financial inclusion as one of the main drivers in reducing income inequality and thus supporting sustainable economic growth of the countries, especially of an emerging economy. The book provides conceptual and practical ideas from the practitioners, best practices from the experts, and empirical views from the researchers on the best practices and how to mitigate the challenges and issues plaguing the development of the financial inclusion.

In the era of globalization and liberalization, the world is enjoying high growth as well as suffering from the ill-effects of unequal distribution of its economic outcomes. The activities of anti-government demonstrations in China and across the world via the Occupy Wall Street Movement highlight that inequality has become an international phenomenon. It is apparent in both poor countries under authoritarianism and rich countries governed by a democratic regime. Thus, inequality has become not only a hurdle to development but also a threat to social and political stability. The spread of the Jasmine Revolution across parts of North Africa and the Arab Spring are illustrative of what can happen under certain circumstances.This book confirms the inconsistencies between high growth and increasing inequality via a series of case studies across 11 countries, numerous regions, and OECD members. Many of the case studies draw upon original household surveys. Our findings indicate the seriousness of income inequality, explore factors that have caused the inequality and analyze their economic and social consequences.The book raises, and deals with, three key questions: (1) Can high growth reduce inequality gradually? (2) Can government intervention be effective in equalizing income distribution? (3) Is the income disparity an engine for, or an obstacle of, high growth?

Economics Today: Macro View-Bringing the Real World to Your Students For a complete multimedia book tour of Miller, Economics Today, 17e, Click Here. For a look at the Supply & Demand Chapter of this title, Click Here. Students learn best when they see concepts applied to examples from their everyday lives. This new edition of Economics Today: Macro View covers leading-edge issues while lowering barriers to student learning. The text relentlessly pursues the fundamental objective of showing students how economics is front and center in their own lives while providing them with many ways to evaluate their understanding of key concepts covered in each chapter. Each chapter begins and ends with an Issues and Applications feature, which introduces a timely issue in the chapter opener and analyzes the issue using the economic tools learned in that chapter at the end. This text is also available with MyEconLab(r), which includes assessment questions that tie to these Issues and Applications, as well as ABC News video clips. With MyEconLab, students can continue working problems online and receive personalized tutorial resources. Visit MyEconLab for more information.

Well-known for its engaging, conversational style, this text makes sophisticated concepts accessible, introducing students to how markets and institutions shape the global financial system and economic policy. Principles of Money, Banking & Financial Markets incorporates current research and data while taking stock of sweeping changes in the international financial landscape produced by financial innovation, deregulation, and geopolitical considerations. It is easy to encourage students to practice with MyEconLab, the online homework and tutorial system. New to the Twelfth Edition, select end-of-chapter exercises from the book are assignable in MyEconLab and preloaded problem sets allow students to practice even if the instructor has not logged in. For more information about how instructors can use MyEconLab, click here.

All specialist economics students, plus students taking a non-specialist module, and social science students taking an economics module will need this book.

Reflecting the diverse and profound changes triggered by the latest wave of economic globalization, this book highlights various governance responses at national, regional and global levels. The topics covered are wide-ranging and include economic history and development, European integration, exchange rate arrangements, industrial and labor economics, international cooperation and multilateralism, and public choice. The book is divided into three parts: The first part, which contains contributions by Barry Eichengreen and Marc Flandreau, is devoted to economic history. The second part examines open economy macroeconomics with a focus on Europe, including contributions by Jurgen von Hagen and Paul Krugman. The third part presents contributions to international political economy, and related interdisciplinary topics. This Festschrift is written in honor of Jorge Braga de Macedo, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Nova School of Business and Economics and a distinguished Portuguese academic whose work has an impressive global reach. The contributions, written by a selection of international authors, deal with his oeuvre covering the wide range of topics broached in this book, as his publication record amply attests.

This book focuses on the Chinese context to investigate how informal institutions (Confucian culture and its dimensions, religion, political connections) in China affect accounting behaviors. This book tries to show that cultural influence and religious impacts in China are not trivial and increasingly important, and specifically, informal institutions have its bright and dark sides with regard to its effects on accounting behaviors. This book aims to investigate whether and how informal institutions (Confucian culture and its dimensions, religion, political connections) affect micro-level accounting behaviors, including but not limited to audit quality, financial misstatement, R&D, corporate misconducts, corporate philanthropy and corporate environmental responsibility. This book provides graduate students, scholars and practitioners in the fields of accounting, business administration and religion with an in-depth understanding about how informal institutions as a set of social norms affect micro-level accounting behaviors. First, this book is the first to focus on the Chinese context and investigate the effects of informal institutions on accounting behavior. Second, this book documents systematic evidence to show the bright and dark sides with regard to the relation between informal institutions and accounting behavior in China. Lastly, this book reveals informal institutions can serve as an important mechanism to affect accounting behaviors.