After Crisis

The global financial crisis that exploded around September 2008 was just one more in a series of crises that have affected more than sixty countries in the era of financial liberalization. Of course the latest crisis is particularly significant in a number of ways: it originated in the core of capitalism, in the United States; it has spread dramatically across the world, even to countries that earlier seemed to be relatively secure; it calls into question many of the mainstream economic dogmas that have dominated economic policy-making for more than two decades. Yet, in some other ways, the current crisis is not very different from those that have preceded it in the recent past. July 2007 marked the completion of a decade since the onset of financial crisis in several East and Southeast Asian countries. The crisis of 1997 focused attention on the dangers associated with a world dominated by fluid finance. It brought home the fact that financial liberalization can result in crises even in so-called 'miracle economies'. Prior to the crisis, the pace and pattern of growth in many countries in that region were challenging the dominance of the original capitalist powers over the global economy. The 1997 crisis set back that process, and even after a decade many of these countries have not been able to recover their pre-crisis dynamism. In hindsight, it is clear that currency and financial crises have devastating effects on the real economy. The ensuing liquidity crunch and wave of bankruptcies result in severe deflation, with attendant consequences for employment and the standard of living. The adoption, post-crisis, of conventional IMF stabilization strategies tends to worsen the situation: governments continue to adopt very restrictive macroeconomic policies and restrain public expenditure even in crucial social sectors. Finally, asset-price deflation and devaluation pave the way for foreign capital inflows that finance a transfer of ownership of assets from domestic to foreign investors, thereby enabling a conquest by international capital of important domestic assets and resources. This book delineates the alternative trajectories of post-crisis development in different economies, the lessons they offer and the implications they have for alternative policies. It is important to take stock of these processes because it is becoming evident that the international financial system has still not evolved effective ways of preventing such crises among emerging economies and of reducing their damaging effects. This book therefore has a wider focus than the East Asian 'crisis economies' alone: it tries to situate post-crisis developments in a broader analysis of the recent political economy of international capitalism, in particular, the role of mobile finance. It also offers comparative perspectives on post-crisis restructuring in other developing countries that have experienced crisis; as well as on the experience of other Asian countries that were affected by, but did not experience the financial crisis. While the essays in this book were originally written in 2007, they remain extraordinarily relevant to the present times, not least because they anticipate the processes that led to the global financial meltdown in 2008. Many of them predict the severe impact the current global crisis is having on both financial variables and the real economy, in developing countries in particular. Jayati Ghosh and C.P. Chandrasekhar are both Professors at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Architectural Papers series is edited by the Josep Lluís Mateo Chair at the ETH Zurich since 2005. Covering the wide range of topics related to teaching and architectural culture in general, it is aimed at expanding the narrow boundaries of the discipline. Its fifth issue concentrates around the new conditions for architectural practice and around the new epistemologies that may inform it in the next future. That is, in the period after the financial bubble has collapsed and living and working conditions have significantly changed. Essays, studies and interviews, along with a selection of indicative projects, tackle the actual issues of growth and shrinking, economy and ideology, craftsmanship and social space in the city, materiality and sustainability in architecture. In a logical sequence, they depict the current reality of architecture. With contributions by Iñaki Ábalos, Solano Benitez, Alexander Brodsky, Isabel Concheiro, Frederick Cooper Llosa, Hans Ibelings, Krunoslav Ivanisin, Julio Martinez Calzon, Josep Lluís Mateo, Richard Sennett, Wang Shu and Ramias Steinemann AUTHOR: Josep Lluís Mateo born 1949, architect, since 2002 professor of the Architecture Department at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich (ETH) 200 illustrations

Cities After Crisis shows how urbanism and urban design is redefining cities after the global health, economic, and environmental crises of the past decades. The book details how these crises have led to a new urban vision—from avantgarde modern design to an artisan aesthetic that calls for simplicity and the everyday, from the sustainable development paradigm to a resilient vision that defends de-growth and the re-wilding of cities, from a homogenizing globalism to a new localism that values what is distinctive and nearby, from the privatization of the public realm to the commoning and self-governance of urban resources, and from top-down to bottom-up processes based on the engagement and empowerment of communities. Through examples from cities around the world and a detailed look at the London neighbourhood of Dalston, the book shows designers and planners how to incorporate residents into the decision-making process, design inclusive public spaces that can be permanently reconfigured, reimagine obsolete spaces to accommodate radically contemporary uses, and build gardens designed and maintained by the community, among other projects.

The constant threat of crises such as disasters, riots and terrorist attacks poses a frightening challenge to Western societies and governments. While the causes and dynamics of these events have been widely studied, we know little about what happens following their containment and the restoration of stability. This volume explores 'post-crisis politics,' examining how crises give birth to longer term dynamic processes of accountability and learning which are characterised by official investigations, blame games, political manoeuvring, media scrutiny and crisis exploitation. Drawing from a wide range of contemporary crises, including Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, the Madrid train bombings, the Walkerton water contamination, Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia and the Boxing Day Asian tsunami, this is a ground-breaking volume which addresses the longer term impact of crisis-induced politics. Competing pressures for stability and change mean that policies, institutions and leaders may occasionally be uprooted, but often survive largely intact.

A noted economist challenges the fundamental economic assumptions that cast economic growth as the objective and markets as the universally applicable means of achieving it. The global economic crisis of 2008–2009 seemed a crisis not just of economic performance but also of the system's underlying political ideology and economic theory. But a second Great Depression was averted, and the radical shift to New Deal-like economic policies predicted by some never took place. Perhaps the correct response to the crisis is simply careful management of the macroeconomic challenges as we recover, combined with reform of financial regulation to prevent a recurrence. In Economics After the Crisis, Adair Turner offers a strong counterargument to this somewhat complacent view. The crisis of 2008–2009, he writes, should prompt a wide set of challenges to economic and political assumptions and to economic theory. Turner argues that more rapid growth should not be the overriding objective for rich developed countries, that inequality should concern us, that the pre-crisis confidence in financial markets as the means of pursuing objectives was profoundly misplaced.

The New York Times bestseller "Blinder's book deserves its likely place near the top of reading lists about the crisis. It is the best comprehensive history of the episode... A riveting tale." - Financial Times One of our wisest and most clear-eyed economic thinkers offers a masterful narrative of the crisis and its lessons. Many fine books on the financial crisis were first drafts of history—books written to fill the need for immediate understanding. Alan S. Blinder, esteemed Princeton professor, Wall Street Journal columnist, and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, held off, taking the time to understand the crisis and to think his way through to a truly comprehensive and coherent narrative of how the worst economic crisis in postwar American history happened, what the government did to fight it, and what we can do from here—mired as we still are in its wreckage. With bracing clarity, Blinder shows us how the U.S. financial system, which had grown far too complex for its own good—and too unregulated for the public good—experienced a perfect storm beginning in 2007. Things started unraveling when the much-chronicled housing bubble burst, but the ensuing implosion of what Blinder calls the “bond bubble” was larger and more devastating. Some people think of the financial industry as a sideshow with little relevance to the real economy—where the jobs, factories, and shops are. But finance is more like the circulatory system of the economic body: if the blood stops flowing, the body goes into cardiac arrest. When America’s financial structure crumbled, the damage proved to be not only deep, but wide. It took the crisis for the world to discover, to its horror, just how truly interconnected—and fragile—the global financial system is. Some observers argue that large global forces were the major culprits of the crisis. Blinder disagrees, arguing that the problem started in the U.S. and was pushed abroad, as complex, opaque, and overrated investment products were exported to a hungry world, which was nearly poisoned by them. The second part of the story explains how American and international government intervention kept us from a total meltdown. Many of the U.S. government’s actions, particularly the Fed’s, were previously unimaginable. And to an amazing—and certainly misunderstood—extent, they worked. The worst did not happen. Blinder offers clear-eyed answers to the questions still before us, even if some of the choices ahead are as divisive as they are unavoidable. After the Music Stopped is an essential history that we cannot afford to forget, because one thing history teaches is that it will happen again.

Economics After the Crisis is an introductory economics textbook, covering key topics in micro and macro economics. However, this book differs from other introductory economics textbooks in the perspective it takes, and it incorporates issues that are presently underserved by existing textbooks on the market. This book offers an introduction to economics that takes into account criticisms of the orthodox approach, and which acknowledges the role that this largely Western approach has played in the current global financial and economic crisis. A key feature of the book is its global approach: it offers examples from countries all over the world, including from developing and emerging economies. The chapters discuss all major economic topics, including individuals and households; the behaviour of consumers; the behaviour of firms; markets; the role of the state; public goods and commons; labour markets; capital markets; the macroeconomic flow; economic growth; international trade; nature and environmental externalities; poverty and wellbeing. Throughout, the book presents theoretical perspectives in which social structures, relatedness, uncertainty, and social norms provide key economic explanations, contrasting these with the idealized worldview of neoclassical economics. Economics After the Crisis is designed for a one-semester introductory course in economics, primarily at undergraduate but also at postgraduate level, and is suitable for students from a range of disciplines. It will be of particular relevance to those students with an interest in developing economies. https://www.coursera.org/learn/economicsfromapluralistperspective

After the Crisis: Anthropological Thought, Neoliberalism and the Aftermath offers a thought-provoking examination of the state of contemporary anthropology, identifying key issues that have confronted the discipline in recent years and linking them to neoliberalism, and suggesting how we might do things differently in the future. The first part of the volume considers how anthropology has come to resemble, as a result of the rise of postmodern and poststructural approaches in the field, key elements of neoliberalism and neoclassical economics by rejecting the idea of system in favour of individuals. It also investigates the effect of the economic crisis on funding and support for higher education and addresses the sense that anthropology has ‘lost its way’, with uncertainty over the purpose and future of the discipline. The second part of the book explores how the discipline can overcome its difficulties and place itself on a firmer foundation, suggesting ways that we can productively combine the debates of the late twentieth century with a renewed sense that people live their lives not as individuals, but as enmeshed in webs of relationship and obligation.