The author combines macroeconomic history since the Great Depression with a brief exposition of economic theory that stems from and explains that history, and explores how that experience may apply to the present economic crisis. He warns that we may again be headed for stagflation and makes suggestions for escaping the worst effects of the crisis.
-
Front Matter Front Matter (pp. i-ii) -
Preface Preface (pp. iii-iv) -
Acknowledgments Acknowledgments (pp. v-vi) -
Adjusting to Global Economic Change: The Dangerous Road Ahead Adjusting to Global Economic Change: The Dangerous Road Ahead (pp. 1-24)This paper is not primarily about the worldwide financial crisis that began in 2008. Taken by itself, the crisis, although much deeper and wider than other recent ones, is the latest in a series of overexuberance-based financial bubbles that have expanded and burst since at least the 18th century.
Even if the crisis were to approach the one that began with the stock market crash of 1929, central banks and governments have learned how to cope with such crises, at least in part, and how to meliorate their stagnating effects on the real economy of production, employment, and income. If...