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Textbook Details

  • ISBN:
    0691139296
  • ISBN-13:
    9780691139296
  • PUB. DATE:
    August 2008
  • PUBLISHER:
    Princeton University Press
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The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It by Robert J. Shiller

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Provocative analysis of the credit crunchby Willp

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Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, has written an intriguing book about the financial crisis.

He writes of the US housing slump in the 1980s, "All this could have been prevented if people had simply adopted inflation-linked mortgages, but the public seemed unable to grasp the concept." He seems to be blaming the public, for having imperfect information. But if markets...

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The Subprime Solution

Product Details

  • Pub. Date: August 2008
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press
  • Sales Rank: 572,094

Synopsis

The subprime mortgage crisis has already wreaked havoc on the lives of millions of people and now it threatens to derail the U.S. economy and economies around the world. In this trenchant book, best-selling economist Robert Shiller reveals the origins of this crisis and puts forward bold measures to solve it. He calls for an aggressive response--a restructuring of the institutional foundations of the financial system that will not only allow people once again to buy and sell homes with confidence, but will create the conditions for greater prosperity in America and throughout the deeply interconnected world economy.

Shiller blames the subprime crisis on the irrational exuberance that drove the economy's two most recent bubbles--in stocks in the 1990s and in housing between 2000 and 2007. He shows how these bubbles led to the dangerous overextension of credit now resulting in foreclosures, bankruptcies, and write-offs, as well as a global credit crunch. To restore confidence in the markets, Shiller argues, bailouts are needed in the short run. But he insists that these bailouts must be targeted at low-income victims of subprime deals. In the longer term, the subprime solution will require leaders to revamp the financial framework by deploying an ambitious package of initiatives to inhibit the formation of bubbles and limit risks, including better financial information; simplified legal contracts and regulations; expanded markets for managing risks; home equity insurance policies; income-linked home loans; and new measures to protect consumers against hidden inflationary effects.

This powerful book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got into the subprime mess--and how we can get out.

The Register - Tim Worstall

Robert Shiller's got an argument that will make some peoples' heads explode in his new book The Subprime Solution--we need more speculation in the housing market. . . . I said above that this solution will make some peoples' heads explode, that the solution to an excess of speculation is to create a market in yet more speculation. Yet in this case ti is indeed true, this is a valid solution.

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Biography

Robert J. Shiller is the best-selling author of "Irrational Exuberance" and "The New Financial Order" (both Princeton), among other books. He is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University.