First published 2008
Paul Krugman examines how economic crises spread from Asia and Latin America in the 1990s to America's doorstep by 2008. He argues that the financial diseases behind the Great Depression had returned, mutating like antibiotic-resistant bacteria. While Wall Street celebrated massive profits during the housing boom, regulators failed to control an increasingly reckless financial system. When the mid-2000s housing bubble finally burst, America's banks proved just as fragile as those in developing nations during earlier meltdowns. Krugman traces how deregulation created conditions for the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, then outlines specific steps needed to halt the economic slide. The book connects international financial contagion to domestic policy failures, showing how yesterday's distant crises became today's American nightmare. Written in Krugman's clear, energetic style, this updated analysis offers both diagnosis and prescription for a world economy teetering on the edge of deep recession.
Genres: politics, economics, non-fiction, 21st-century, finance, academic
Vibes: thought-provoking
Tropes: diagnosis-and-prescription
Period: 1990s, 2000s, 2008
224 pages · Hardcover · W. W. Norton