…wealth and real wealth. It is true that my mortgage obligation (my financial liability) is someone else’s financial asset so if the present value of the lendor’s financial wealth declines,…

…of mortgage equity withdrawal on consumer spending. 3) Financial distress. Unemployment Last week’s post (Housing: After the Boom) looked back at the early ’90s housing bust. In that bust, housing…

…I think that it probably is. The tremendous financial volatility and sharp falls in asset prices that would follow financial saber-rattling by the Chinese would impose enormous costs on the…

This graph speaks volumes: Profits as a Percent of GDP: Financial Corporations vs. Nonfinancial Corporations We saw a big decline in real businesses’ profit share in the 40s, then a…

…1981 to 2006 total credit assets held by US financial institutions grew by $32.3 trillion (744%). How much do you think bank reserves at the Federal Reserve grew by over…

…I want to refer to an article that was in the global–the leading global financial newspaper The Financial Times last week by one of their columnists, Gavyn Davies. And Davies…

by Robert Waldmann Answering Brad DeLong’s questions Brad asks: There are a large number of serious and, so far, unanswered questions about the financial panic of 2007-2009 and our current…

…useless. * I have to toss in one more pet peeve here: financial assets (often called financial “capital”) are not capital! They’re claims on capital. And contrary to much sloppy…

…extent of our financial vulnerability to a decline in the fortunes of these economies. But one lesson of the 2007-09 global financial crisis is that there may be much we…

…not foreseeing the global financial crisis, Krugman wrote: “ …the common claim that economists ignored the financial side and the risks of crisis seems not quite fair – at least…