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The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008

by Paul Krugman (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 511 ratings
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In 1999, in The Return of Depression Economics, Paul Krugman surveyed the economic crises that had swept across Asia and Latin America, and pointed out that those crises were a warning for all of us: like diseases that have become resistant to antibiotics, the economic maladies that caused the Great Depression were making a comeback. In the years that followed, as Wall Street boomed and financial wheeler-dealers made vast profits, the international crises of the 1990s faded from memory. But now depression economics has come to America: when the great housing bubble of the mid-2000s burst, the U.S. financial system proved as vulnerable as those of developing countries caught up in earlier crises and a replay of the 1930s seems all too possible.

In this new, greatly updated edition of The Return of Depression Economics, Krugman shows how the failure of regulation to keep pace with an increasingly out-of-control financial system set the United States, and the world as a whole, up for the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. He also lays out the steps that must be taken to contain the crisis, and turn around a world economy sliding into a deep recession. Brilliantly crafted in Krugman's trademark style--lucid, lively, and supremely informed--this new edition of The Return of Depression Economics will become an instant cornerstone of the debate over how to respond to the crisis.

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  1. ISBN-10
    9780393071016
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0393071016
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton
  4. Publication date
    December 1, 2008
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    6.5 x 0.8 x 9.6 inches
  7. Print length
    288 pages
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Krugman is the recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics. He writes a twice-weekly op-ed column for the New York Times and a blog named for his 2007 book, The Conscience of Liberal. He teaches economics at Princeton University.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0393071014
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton (December 1, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780393071016
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393071016
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 0.8 x 9.6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 511 ratings

About the author

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Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman

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Paul Krugman writes a twice-weekly column for the op-ed page of the New York Times. A winner of the John Bates Clark Medal who was also named Columnist of the Year by Editor and Publisher magazine, he teaches economics at Princeton University.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
511 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

John K. Prentice
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2009
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The other reviewer's have covered this book in much greater detail than I intend to here. I merely want to add a few comments about who I think would most benefit from reading this book. I am certainly an educated reader, but not someone with an extensive background in economics or finance. However I do have a strong business background and a need to understand the dimensions of this financial crisis in order to better navigate my business through it, not to mention the desire as a citizen to simply comprehend what is going on. Consequently over the past year I have read perhaps half a dozen books purporting to explain the current economic crisis. Most of these deal rather narrowly with subprime lending since that was initially seen as the main culprit. But as the situation has unfolded it became clear to anyone paying any attention that subprime is not the entire story and perhaps not even the biggest part of the problem. Krugman's book does an excellent job of filling in the blanks by explaining how this crisis is related to several earlier crises in Latin America, Asia, Russia, Europe, and the United States. He also does an excellent job of explaining how the US banking system works and in particular the role of the shadow banking system. His writing is straightforward, entertaining, and refreshingly free of jargon and abbreviations. I can't say if someone with a strong economics or finance background would get anything out of reading his book. But his intended audience was people such as myself and I would highly recommend it to anybody not already knowledgeable about the subject who is trying to make sense of what is happening and how we fix it. So far it is by far and away the best book of its kind I have come across. Five stars.
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Donald F. St Denis
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opener
Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2008
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Although the title makes the book sound dismal, Krugman's book is actually an enjoyable read. The author goes out of his way to avoid a dry, stuffy tone. Instead, he tells simple stories, like the one about the baby sitting co-op in Washington, which he uses repeatedly throughout the book to explain progressively more complex ideas.

For me, the biggest eye-opener offered by this book is Krugman's explanation of the unregulated shadow banking system that emerged in recent years and has been caving in prior to and during this financial crisis. What are auction-rate securities, and why did the market for them collapse? And why didn't this get more coverage in the media? Krugman explains this, in part by drawing upon an alarming speech made by Timothy Geithner, Obama's nominated Treasury secretary, in June 2008 in which Geithner described a "parallel financial system vulnerable to a classic type of run, but without the protections such as deposit insurance that the banking system has in place to reduce such risks."

This is a great book: readable, informative and timely. I recommend it to anyone who's eager to dig into a deeper examination of the underlying causes of the financial crisis.
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Edwin C. Pauzer
4.0 out of 5 stars Relearning Lessons Our Grandfathers Taught Us
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2009
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Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, has recast an earlier publication of his 1999 work, "The Return of Depression Economics" to include the recession that has begun in the United States.

The author traces the causes of economic hardships in this century in Thailand, Brazil, Japan, Argentina, Sweden, Mexico, and other Latin America countries. He examines their recessions and their solutions that exacerbated the problem or contained it. These solutions ranged from devaluing the currency to expanding or tightening credit, or changes in tax policy, etc.. His point is that all of these are lessons that the United States ignores at its peril.

The book's expansion focuses on the US and the pitfalls that were made back in 1930 that made our recession into a depression. According to Professor Krugman, many Americans believe that our economy is immune from a 1930s style Depression because of "safeguards" that were taken to prevent such a crisis from recurring. But in the 1980s, traditional banks were given more freedom to do what "they thought best" through deregulation. Unfortunately, deregulation was a double-edged sword that allowed banks to take bad risks," with less incentive to avoid them.

Some on the right blame the sorry state of economic affairs on the Community Reinvestment Act, which purportedly compelled banks to make risky loans to minorities who then defaulted. This law was passed in 1977; it is hardly likely that a law took 30 years to infect our economy. People on the left assert that it was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which might have moved us closer to our economic woes, but is not the main reason. Krugman believes unregulated institutions that took bad risks helped fuel our recession. When these "shadow banks" outgrew conventional banking, regulation and protection for the public did not follow.

Case in point is the sub-prime mortgages that have failed. Mortgages were made to ninjas (no income, no job, no assets). This was of no consequence to the lender who didn't care if the borrower could not make the payments so long as the cost of housing market kept rising. When housing prices started going to the basement, default rates started going to the attic. But these didn't become ordinary mortgage foreclosures.

The lenders weren't banks but "loan originators." They sold the loans to financial institutions "which in turn, sliced and diced pools of mortgages into collateralized debt obligations" known as CDO's which were sold to investors who placed many of them in pension funds. The better shares were given AAA rating, which would have first dibs on payment. These were considered safe. It became apparent that even these weren't risk-free when the housing bubble burst, and no one was paid.

This brings us to "depression economics." It is insufficient private spending to make use of the available productive capacity, or demand-side economics, which he believes is critical for prosperity. He dismissed supply side economics as a "crank doctrine that would have little influence were it not for editors and wealthy men."

Overcoming depression economics requires bold action. Professor Krugman advises an expansive, Keynesian recapitalization that is at least 4% or 5% of GNP. In other words, a stimulus of gigantic proportions. It will require more government control that borders on nationalization of our financial system until the economy is robust enough to return it to the private sector. He also advocates that the federal government lend money, temporarily to the non-financial sector. And it isn't just the US economy that he is concerned about. By lending money to developing countries and Europe, we free up credit to be used here. The author contends that it is a global economy that requires fixing if we are to survive. "The worst thing we could do is failing to do what's necessary out of fear that acting to save the financial system is somehow `socialist.'"

What is exceptional about this book is the author's ability to make complex economic models simple so even a simple rube, like myself, wouldn't have to fast for a month in the nude, wondering if it would all come to me in a vision. Thanks to PK, I learned far more about the sub-prime mortgage lending, the inner working of hedge funds, than I had known before. Each chapter provided one lesson of instruction after another.

As the professor states, it's time we relearn what our grandfathers taught us.

Being it's April 15th, it's also time for a cup of tea. (I'll drink it instead of throw it).

Also Recommended:

Taibbi, Matt, "The Big Takeover," Rolling Stone Magazine, April 2, 2009.
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Top reviews from other countries

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arkaprabha Chowdhury
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in India on March 14, 2022
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Great book
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Ian
5.0 out of 5 stars A good read!
Reviewed in Canada on December 14, 2017
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Very interesting book in language that is understandable...A good read!
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HECTOR ZERMENO
5.0 out of 5 stars útil y entretenido
Reviewed in Mexico on November 9, 2017
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El autor tiene un estilo muy ameno de plantear las ideas, aparte de que está muy bien informado por su formación de economista. Nos lleva por un recorrido historico desde la gran depresión del siglo XX, y un poco atrás, hasta la más reciente que el mundo conoce de 2008. Una buena base para entender como funcionan los mercados de valores y monedas, así como las póliticas que están atrás
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Raphael
5.0 out of 5 stars Une explication claire et pédagogique des théories kénésiennes
Reviewed in France on December 28, 2018
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L'auteur explique d'une manière très claire et pédagogique sa vision de l'économie. Le livre est agréable à lire et l'auteur s'exprime avec humilité. Je pense que c'est un très bon livre si vous souhaitez comprendre la vision keynésienne des dernières crises et du monde actuel.
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Kyle Miller
5.0 out of 5 stars Timely
Reviewed in Australia on March 6, 2020
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Fantastic read as once again we enter an uncertain world - this time triggered by human nature rather than financial nature (though financial matters could potentially become more significant). It is amazing how often history has a habit of repeating itself, even if the initial inputs are different
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