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Fault Lines

How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy

Raghuram G. Rajan

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English
Princeton University Pres
07 November 2011
Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed. Rajan shows how the individual choices that collectively brought about the economic meltdown--made by bankers, government officials, and ordinary homeowners--were rational responses to a flawed global financial order in which the incentives to take on risk are incredibly out of step with the dangers those risks pose. He traces the deepening fault lines in a world overly dependent on the indebted American consumer to power global economic growth and stave off global downturns. He exposes a system where America's growing inequality and thin social safety net create tremendous political pressure to encourage easy credit and keep job creation robust, no matter what the consequences to the economy's long-term health; and where the U.S. financial sector, with its skewed incentives, is the critical but unstable link between an overstimulated America and an underconsuming world.

In Fault Lines, Rajan demonstrates how unequal access to education and health care in the United States puts us all in deeper financial peril, even as the economic choices of countries like Germany, Japan, and China place an undue burden on America to get its policies right. He outlines the hard choices we need to make to ensure a more stable world economy and restore lasting prosperity.
By:  
Imprint:   Princeton University Pres
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 216mm,  Width: 140mm,  Spine: 21mm
Weight:   255g
ISBN:   9780691152639
ISBN 10:   0691152632
Pages:   272
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  ELT Advanced ,  Primary
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Chapter One: Let Them Eat Credit 21 Chapter Two: Exporting to Grow 46 Chapter Three: Flighty Foreign Financing 68 Chapter Four: A Weak Safety Net 83 Chapter Five: From Bubble to Bubble 101 Chapter Six: When Money Is the Measure of All Worth 120 Chapter Seven: Betting the Bank 134 Chapter Eight: Reforming Finance 154 Chapter Nine: Improving Access to Opportunity in America 183 Chapter Ten: The Fable of the Bees Replayed 202 Epilogue 225 Afterword to the Paperback Edition 231 Notes 241 Index 257

Raghuram G. Rajan is the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He is the coauthor of Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists (Princeton).

Reviews for Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy

Fault Lines has a strong claim to be the economics book that best caught the spirit of 2010. Raghuram Rajan's receipt of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs annual business book award only confirmed his book's widespread popularity. It is not hard to see why so many people liked it. Fault Lines eschews hyperbole for a lucid and balanced account of the crisis. -- Fund Strategy


  • Short-listed for Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize 2011
  • Short-listed for Paul A. Samuelson Award 2010
  • Shortlisted for Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize 2011.
  • Shortlisted for Paul A. Samuelson Award 2010.
  • Winner of Association of American Publishers Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Economics 2010 (United States)
  • Winner of Association of American Publishers/Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards: Economics 2010.
  • Winner of Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics 2013
  • Winner of Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2010.

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