scholarly journals The Crisis in Economic Theory: A Review Essay

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1350-1361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin D. Hoover
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
The Great Recession

The Great Recession and the financial crisis of 2007–09 prompted calls for fundamental reforms of economic theory. The role of theory in economics and in recent economic events is considered in light of two recent books: the sociologist Richard Swedberg's The Art of Social Theory and the economist André Orléan's The Empire of Value: A New Foundation for Economics. (JEL A11, B40, Z13)

The cascading crisis and the changing base of popular protest: The case of Iceland

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (7) ◽  
pp. 1018-1038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jón Gunnar Bernburg
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Economic Vulnerability ◽  
Popular Protest ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Injustice

The rise of economic injustice protests during the Great Recession era – i.e. against economic inequality, flawed democracy, and austerity – begs the question whether the social and political divisions underlying protest behavior have changed. Iceland offers a microcosm for studying such changes. Since the crisis struck, huge protests against economic injustice have emerged repeatedly, providing an opportunity to study how protest behavior has changed during the cascading crisis, that is, a crisis that started in finance but then led to recession, austerity, and political crisis. This article uses survey data obtained in Iceland before the crisis, and during two protest waves emerging at different stages of the crisis, that is, during the 2008–2009 financial crisis, and during the 2016 ‘Panama Papers leak’. The author finds that economic vulnerability, perceptions of flawed democracy, and political centrism emerged as predictors of protest behavior during the crisis. But the role of ‘new social movements’ allegiance seems to diminish in the later stage of the crisis. The study supports broad theses about changes in popular protest, yet it illustrates the need to embed the work in a given (evolving) social context.

scholarly journals Introduction: A Decade of Indignation

boundary 2 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Bécquer Seguín
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Great Recession

This introduction briefly provides the context of the Great Recession in Spain, which spurred one of the largest protests movements in the country's history. Known locally as the 15M and internationally as the indignados movement, the occupation of plazas in the spring and summer of 2011 jump-started a broader cultural, intellectual, and political shift in Spain that is only beginning to be appreciated by scholarship in literary and cultural studies. This introduction then briefly introduces the contributions to this special issue, which are organized into various clusters that cut across literary studies, intellectual history, social theory, political theory, film studies, social movements, and feminism, among other fields. The issue serves simultaneously as a primer on and a contribution to our understanding of how the 2008 global financial crisis has impacted social, intellectual, and political life in Spain.

Real Estate

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Homburg
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
House Prices ◽  
Borrowing Constraints ◽  
Macroeconomic Models ◽  
Land Prices ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Quantitative Importance

Chapter 6 examines real estate as a neglected feature of actual economies. It begins with an empirical overview demonstrating the preeminent role of land as a part of nonfinancial wealth. Whereas many macroeconomic models represent nonfinancial wealth by a symbol K that is interpreted as machines and equipment (if not robots), the text makes clear that such items are of minor quantitative importance. In contemporary economies, nonfinancial wealth consists chiefly of real estate. This is the proper reason so many analysts conjecture a link between house prices and the Great Recession. Changes in house prices (primarily changes in land prices) operate on the economy through their influence on nonfinancial wealth. Nonfinancial wealth affects consumption directly and investment indirectly since it relaxes or tightens borrowing constraints. Building on the results obtained in previous chapters, the text studies housing manias and leverage cycles and relates its main findings to US data.

The Great Financial Crisis: an Ethical Rejoinder

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (01) ◽  
pp. 19-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Charles Merrill
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Ethical Question ◽  
Heterodox Economics ◽  
Ethical Philosophy ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Economy ◽  
Radical Reconstruction

The Great Financial Crisis that broke in 2008 and the Great Recession that followed has led many to question the very structure of contemporary economies. Some argue that the economic model of the past forty years is now broken. Criticism has also been directed at the orthodoxies of economics. For example, neoclassical equilibrium economics, the mainstream economics of the day, is accused of failing to understand some of the most basic aspects of the modern economy (debt and money), of supporting policies that have led to the economic breakdown (deregulation), and of failing to see the crisis coming (Bezemer 2012, Keen 2011). Consequently, heterodox thinking in economics is getting a hearing as never before. Heterodox economics offers itself as the requisite radical reconstruction of the science of economics and also proposes policies for the radical reconstruction of the major economics.Yet to talk of the reconstruction of the modern market economy is at the same time to raise the ethical question: what shape ought the market economy to take? Heterodox economics may acutely analyse the inadequacies of real economies and propose plausible reforms, but as an essentially descriptive science there will be limits on its ability to state what ought to be. Rather, what is required seems to be a systematic prescriptive ethics. In other words, recent events in the world of economics have provided an opening for what ethical philosophy should be best at providing. Determining whether a specific ethical philosophy, to be identified shortly, has the capacity to address the questions raised by heterodox economics is the task of this paper.

Are Busy Directors Harmful or Helpful? Evidence from the Great Recession

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradit Withisuphakorn ◽  
Pornsit Jiraporn
Keyword(s):  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Firm Value ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Governance Mechanisms ◽  
Great Caution ◽  
Crisis Period ◽  
The Great Recession

Abstract We contribute to the debate on the costs and benefits of busy directors by investigating the effect of busy directors on firm value during a stressful time, i. e. during the Great Recession. Our results show that busy directors improve firm value significantly during the financial crisis. In particular, a rise in directors’ busyness by one standard deviation results in an improvement in Tobin’s q by 6.41 %. Directors with multiple board seats appear to help firms navigate the crisis more successfully, supporting the notion that multiple board seats signal higher quality. Outside the crisis period, however, we find that busy directors reduce firm value, consistent with many prior studies. Our results are crucial as they show that governance mechanisms function differently during stressful times than they do during normal times. Firms should exercise great caution before imposing limits on outside board seats on their directors.

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