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Lost Decades: The Making of America's Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery 1st Edition

by Menzie D. Chinn (Author), Jeffry A. Frieden (Author)

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Two acclaimed political economists explore the origins and long-term effects of the financial crisis in historical and comparative perspective.

Welcome to Argentina: by 2008 the United States had become the biggest international borrower in world history, with almost half of its 6.4 trillion dollar federal debt in foreign hands. The proportion of foreign loans to the size of the economy put the United States in league with Mexico, Pakistan, and other third-world debtor nations. The massive inflow of foreign funds financed the booms in housing prices and consumer spending that fueled the economy until the collapse of late 2008.

The authors explore the political and economic roots of this crisis as well as its long-term effects. They explain the political strategies behind the Bush administration's policy of funding massive deficits with the foreign borrowing that fed the crisis. They see the continuing impact of our huge debt in a slow recovery ahead. Their clear, insightful, and comprehensive account will long be regarded as the standard on the crisis.

ISBN-10

0393076504
ISBN-13

978-0393076509
Edition

1st
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

September 19, 2011
Language

English
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.1 x 9.6 inches
Print length

304 pages
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Jeffry A. Frieden
180
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Thomas Oatley
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Edited by John Ravenhill
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Here a leading economist and leading political scientist team up to explain in simple, straightforward terms the political economy of the financial crisis. If you have time to read only one book on the crisis, read this. (Barry Eichengreen, University of California Berkeley)

About the Author

Menzie D. Chinn teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and coauthors the influential blog Econbrowser.

Jeffry A. Frieden is the Stanfield Professor of International Peace at Harvard University. A specialist on the politics of international financial relations, he is also coauthor, with Menzie Chinn, of Lost Decades, a history of the 2008 financial crisis.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (September 19, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393076504
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393076509
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.06 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.1 x 9.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,545,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #802 in Public Finance (Books)
- #3,476 in Political Economy
- #5,789 in Economic Conditions (Books)

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Jeffry A. Frieden
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Jeffry Frieden is Professor of Government at Harvard University. He specializes in the politics of international economic relations. Frieden is the author of "Currency Politics: The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy" (2015), and (with Menzie Chinn) of "Lost Decades: The Making of America's Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery" (2011). Frieden is also the author of "Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century" (2006; updated second edition 2020), of "Banking on the World: The Politics of American International Finance" (1987), of "Debt, Development, and Democracy: Modern Political Economy and Latin America, 1965‑1985" (1991), and is the co-author or co-editor of over a dozen other books on related topics. His articles on the politics of international economic issues have appeared in a wide variety of scholarly and general-interest publications. For more information you can visit http://scholar.harvard.edu/jfrieden/
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Menzie David Chinn
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Menzie Chinn is Professor of Public Affairs and Economics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He is a Research Associate in the International Finance and Macroeconomics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and served as a senior economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers (2000-01). He is coauthor with Jeffry Frieden of The Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery (W.W. Norton, 2011), and co-contributor to the weblog Econbrowser. His work has been cited in The Economist, Financial Times, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and he has been interviewed on CNBC, NPR, and Minnesota Public Radio. Dr. Chinn received an A.B. in Economics from Harvard, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Rick Spell

The Book To Read on the Economic Crisis and Debt Issues

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2011

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Possibly the most important book you can read on the economic crisis and what our future may look like. This is an academic written book but written in a form that is very readable for the layman. It is a retrace of our economic system focusing on the borrowing that has been done overseas to finance our economy. It is not focused on our government borrowing but ALL borrowing. Frankly, it will make you sick to your stomach to see how we have wasted a decade financing our standard of living which was not sustainable financed as it was.

But unfortunately, as the authors lay out our course for the future in comparison with past examples, what begins to be explained is the future decades to be lost. The authors do plot a course out of this but it all comes to this question: do we have the backbone to take the pain it will take both in our personal finances and the finances of government? I worry that our countrymen have grown soft and want an easy way out. There is none.

I would be remiss to not mention politics and this book. Unfortunately so many books start with a bias whereas these guys clinically analyzed it. However, they clinically talk about the problems with massive tax cuts and are fairly negative on what this did for our country. I agree although admittedly have enjoyed the fruits of the tax cuts. In the 1990s the economy grew 24%. In the 2000s, 6%. The 90s started the era with a tax increase. The 2000s with a tax reduction. The 90s ended with a surplus. The 2000s, not so much. Now, does that mean tax cuts are bad and tax increases are good? Of course not! People try to make the solution to simplistic. It's not. But one thing this book makes very clear: the pain is coming one way or another. And the sooner the better.

4 people found this helpful

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Law student

Good first book on the crisis but missing major component.

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2011

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I thought this was a pretty clear, well articulated book by two academics [an economist and a political scientist] explaining broadly what caused America to go down a series of wrong turns. It reads quite well for a book written by academics and its easily possible to read it in one sitting if you have 8 or so hours lying around [like on a plane].

But there are a number of problems with the book, that if you have read other 'economic crisis porn', quickly jump at you. First, when discussing the 'shadow banking system' they lump in private equity funds like Blackstone with macro hedge funds like Bridgewater with investment banks. I think in a video symposium [very good by the way and found here [...] Menzie admitted that academic economist didnt usually pay attention to finance and their lumping of all the previously mentioned financial institutions shows this pretty well. Private equity funds may do a lot of fishy things but they generate their income by arbitraging US tax code's preferences of debt over equity and capital gains over income gains. They do not loan out money. And macro hedge funds like Bridgewater may have been involved in some aspects of buying synthetic instruments but since they usually make big bets on broad economic movements its hard to imagine those types of hedge funds buying up a lot of SIV paper.

The second and more glaring mistake was the total absence of 'repos' in the discussion. Repos and the need for increased margin payments on them were one of the principal reasons Bear/Lehman/AIG all went down [repos also just brought down MF Global, the 8th largest bankruptcy in the US.] I think if anyone wants to understand this crisis they have to read up on the repo market, as the the rise of this market was without the doubt one of the key reasons for the crisis turning out the way it did. Bernake, and the book quotes him, has a historically terrible quote from 2007 when he says something like "Subprime is contained, its a tiny market, no big crisis is coming." Now many people view this as a "aha" moment, in the sense that they caught Bernake being incompetent. Rather, I would argue that like other academic economists [like the writers of this book too] Bernake simply didnt care about the repo markets and did not understand how a relatively small, 30 billion dollar market in sub prime mortgages could destroy financial institutions like Lehman, Aig and Bear Sterns.

So again, if as Berry Eichengreen says on the back cover of the book "If have only time to read one book on the crisis" make it this one. But if you are a bit more curious you will need to search out other sources to get the full picture. And I mean sources that deal with the technical nature of the financial markets in the developed words, not books like "Too Big To Fail" or the "Big Short" (both excellent by the way but are too much written like morality plays that focus on the really big characters that were in place in 2008.)

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Alex

Excellent!

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2016

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Great book. Menzie did an amazing job simplifying the debt crisis. I would totally recommend his book to people who would want to study the housing market crash with little to no knowledge.

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A. Menon

Good account of where we are from the imbalance perspective but better material out there

Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2011

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Lost Decades is an account of how the world got to where it is today discussing both recent financial events as well as the larger trends that took us to the breaking point. It is quite comprehensive and covers the similarities of other debt crises, the market failures endured, the vested interests protected and the required steps for a sustainable future. Its primary focus is on US deficits, both federal and trade and on the unfortunate fact that deficits that fund consumption rather than productive investment make the adjustment much harder and the sacrifices much greater.

Lost decades first starts with economics and history discussing other debt crises including Argentina and showing how the differences in policy between Argentina and Brazil led to very different outcomes. It then discusses the microeconomics of boom bust cycles and how they are fed and sustained. It continues to examine the risky business practices engaged in by financial services and the misalignment of interests when financial transactions and services are not arms length. The book then takes the reader into the financial crisis that we were engulfed by in 2008 and discusses precise events. Subsequent to the account of recent history it turns full circle to propose solutions the author's percieve to be the core of what need to be addressed.

The content of the book is solid and the ideas consistent. It is not however, the best book out there on the crisis. It has a mixed role in being inbetween Too Big to Fail and Fault Lines. Being as engaging as neither on the recounting events side of Too Big to Fail nor as insightful as Fault Lines. It gives a good overview of why we are where we are, taking a focus on the deficits as the source. If the reader has time though I would encourage them to read the other more focused books instead of this which covers a lot in material but covers little in detail.

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Top reviews from other countries

Neil Osborne

An Excellent Explanation of the Financial Crisis in the USA

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 6, 2018

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This book was written in 2011, shortly after the financial crisis of 2008, but remains very relevant today. It provides an excellent explanation of the financial crisis and the reasons why mistakes were made in tax policy, unfunded government programmes, increased risk-taking in the banking sector and overoptimistic credit ratings. Its predictions of a long period of slow growth and painful austerity following the excessive government and consumer borrowing that preceded the crisis have been borne out by events after 2011.

The book was written by American authors and mainly focuses on the USA, with brief mentions of the UK, Spain, Ireland, Greece and Iceland. However, as the UK made many of the same mistakes as the USA the book still resonates with the UK reader. At the time of writing this review (2018), the UK has made a significant reduction in its government deficit but it is looking increasingly likely that New Labour’s debts will never be repaid. Frustratingly, the UK’s chronic trade deficit continues.

The book highlights very well the role in the crisis played by China and Germany, which have run chronic trade surpluses. There remains comparatively little pressure on these nations to change their policies so the world’s trade imbalances look set to continue.

If you are after an easier read, then read The Big Short, but read this if you want a more comprehensive explanation of the crisis and what (still) needs to be done.

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