Wrong : nine economic policy disasters and what we can learn from them /
Richard S. Grossman.
- Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013.
- xiii , 266 p. ; 26 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Introduction -- 2. How to lose and empire without really trying: British imperial policy in North America -- 3. Establish, disestablish, repeat: the first and second banks of the United States -- 4. The great hunger: famine in Ireland -- 5. The krauts will pay: German reparations after World War I -- 6. Shackled with golden ferrets: Britain's return to the gold standard, 1925-1931 -- 7. Trading down: the Smoot-Hawley tariff, 1930 -- 8. Why didn't anyone pull the Andon cord? Japan's lost decade -- 9. The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression: the subprime meltdown -- 10. I'm OK. Euro not OK? -- 11. What have we learned? where do we go from here?.
In recent years, the world has been rocked by major economic crises, most notably the devastating collapse of Lehman Brothers, the largest bankruptcy in American history, which triggered the breathtakingly destructive sub-prime disaster. What sparks these vast economic calamities? Why do our economic policy makers fail to protect us from such upheavals? Addresses such questions, shining a light on the poor thinking behind nine of the worst economic policy mistakes of the past 200 years, missteps whose outcomes ranged from appalling to tragic. It tells the story behind each misconceived economic move, explaining why the policy was adopted, how it was implemented, and its short- and long-term consequences. In each case, shows that the main culprits were policy makers who were guided by ideology rather than economics.