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House of Debt
Book

House of Debt

How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession, and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again

University of Chicago Press, 2015 更多详情


Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Using a rich data set, Princeton economics professor Atif Mian and University of Chicago finance professor Amir Sufi demonstrate convincingly that debt, especially household borrowing, is pernicious and likely to lead to economic catastrophe. They explain that excessive borrowing, driven by overeager lenders who did not fully appreciate the risks they were taking, created the boom preceding the Great Recession. The authors make a compelling case that direct assistance to homebuyers through adjusting mortgage principal and addressing debt could have mitigated the impact of the recession, especially the devastating rise in unemployment. The text’s occasional quirks of phrasing and lapses in copy editing need not detract from the reader’s edification. getAbstract recommends this cogent analysis to economists and policy makers, as well as to householders with mortgages seeking to understand their risks more fully.

Take-Aways

  • Big increases in debt almost always precede economic disasters.
  • A financial system that depends on borrowing burdens debtors with intensified financial risk.
  • Debt forces losses on those least able to afford them.

About the Authors

Atif Mian is a professor of economics and public policy at Princeton University. Amir Sufi is a finance professor at the University of Chicago.


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