Hall of mirrors : the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the uses--and misuses--of History / Barry Eichengreen.
2015
HB3717 1929 .E37 2015 (Mapit)
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Title
Hall of mirrors : the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the uses--and misuses--of History / Barry Eichengreen.
Author
Eichengreen, Barry J.
ISBN
9780199392001 hardcover
0199392005 hardcover
0199392005 hardcover
Published
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2015]
Language
English
Description
vi, 512 pages ; 25 cm
Call Number
HB3717 1929 .E37 2015
Dewey Decimal Classification
330.9/043
Summary
"A brilliantly conceived dual-track account of the two greatest economic crises of the last century and their consequences"-- Provided by publisher.
"There have been two global financial crises in the past century: the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession that began in 2008. Both featured loose credit, precarious real estate and stock market bubbles, suspicious banking practices, an inflexible monetary system, and global imbalances; both had devastating economic consequences. In both cases, people in the prosperous decade preceding the crash believed they were living in a post-volatility economy, one that had tamed the cycle of boom and bust. When the global financial system began to totter in 2008, policymakers were able to draw on the lessons of the Great Depression in order to prevent a repeat, but their response was still inadequate to prevent massive economic turmoil on a global scale. In Hall of Mirrors, renowned economist Barry Eichengreen provides the first book-length analysis of the two crises and their aftermaths. Weaving together the narratives of the 30s and recent years, he shows how fear of another Depression greatly informed the policy response after the Lehman Brothers collapse, with both positive and negative results. On the positive side, institutions took the opposite paths that they had during the Depression; government increased spending and cut taxes, and central banks reduced interest rates, flooded the market with liquidity, and coordinated international cooperation. This in large part prevented the bank failures, 25% unemployment rate, and other disasters that characterized the Great Depression. But they all too often hewed too closely and too literally to the lessons of the Depression, seeing it as a mirror rather than focusing on the core differences. Moreover, in their haste to differentiate themselves from their forbears, today's policymakers neglected the constructive but ultimately futile steps that the Federal Reserve took in the 1930s. While the rapidly constructed policies of late 2008 did succeed in staving off catastrophe in the years after, policymakers, institutions, and society as a whole were too eager to get back to normal, even when that meant stunting the recovery via harsh austerity policies and eschewing necessary long-term reforms. The result was a grindingly slow recovery in the US and a devastating recession in Europe. Hall of Mirrors is not only a monumental work of economic history, but an essential exploration of how we avoided making only some of the same mistakes twice--and why our partial remedy makes us highly susceptible to making other, equally important mistakes yet again"-- Provided by publisher.
"There have been two global financial crises in the past century: the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession that began in 2008. Both featured loose credit, precarious real estate and stock market bubbles, suspicious banking practices, an inflexible monetary system, and global imbalances; both had devastating economic consequences. In both cases, people in the prosperous decade preceding the crash believed they were living in a post-volatility economy, one that had tamed the cycle of boom and bust. When the global financial system began to totter in 2008, policymakers were able to draw on the lessons of the Great Depression in order to prevent a repeat, but their response was still inadequate to prevent massive economic turmoil on a global scale. In Hall of Mirrors, renowned economist Barry Eichengreen provides the first book-length analysis of the two crises and their aftermaths. Weaving together the narratives of the 30s and recent years, he shows how fear of another Depression greatly informed the policy response after the Lehman Brothers collapse, with both positive and negative results. On the positive side, institutions took the opposite paths that they had during the Depression; government increased spending and cut taxes, and central banks reduced interest rates, flooded the market with liquidity, and coordinated international cooperation. This in large part prevented the bank failures, 25% unemployment rate, and other disasters that characterized the Great Depression. But they all too often hewed too closely and too literally to the lessons of the Depression, seeing it as a mirror rather than focusing on the core differences. Moreover, in their haste to differentiate themselves from their forbears, today's policymakers neglected the constructive but ultimately futile steps that the Federal Reserve took in the 1930s. While the rapidly constructed policies of late 2008 did succeed in staving off catastrophe in the years after, policymakers, institutions, and society as a whole were too eager to get back to normal, even when that meant stunting the recovery via harsh austerity policies and eschewing necessary long-term reforms. The result was a grindingly slow recovery in the US and a devastating recession in Europe. Hall of Mirrors is not only a monumental work of economic history, but an essential exploration of how we avoided making only some of the same mistakes twice--and why our partial remedy makes us highly susceptible to making other, equally important mistakes yet again"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 417-493) and index.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: The best of times
New age economics
Golden globe
Competing on a violent scale
By legislation or fiat
Where credit is due
Castles in Spain
Part II: The worst of times
Spent bullets
The next leg down
On Europe's shores
Will America topple too?
Largely contained
Scant evidence
The spiral
Fish or foul
Part III: Toward better times
Revival or reform
Something for everyone
Takahashi's revenge
Dip again
Preventing the worst
Stressed and stimulated
Unconventional policy
Part IV: Avoiding the next time
Wall Street and Main Street
Normalization in an abnormal economy
Making things as difficult as possible
Men in black
Euro or not
Conclusion.
Part I: The best of times
New age economics
Golden globe
Competing on a violent scale
By legislation or fiat
Where credit is due
Castles in Spain
Part II: The worst of times
Spent bullets
The next leg down
On Europe's shores
Will America topple too?
Largely contained
Scant evidence
The spiral
Fish or foul
Part III: Toward better times
Revival or reform
Something for everyone
Takahashi's revenge
Dip again
Preventing the worst
Stressed and stimulated
Unconventional policy
Part IV: Avoiding the next time
Wall Street and Main Street
Normalization in an abnormal economy
Making things as difficult as possible
Men in black
Euro or not
Conclusion.