Bailouts
Subtitle: public money, private profit
By: Robert E. Wright, editor.
Contributors: Wright, Robert E. 1969-
Series: Columbia University Press and Social Science Research Council series on the privatization of risk
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 147
ISBN-13: 9780231150545; 9780231150552; 9780231521734
Subjects: Financial crises -- United States; Finance -- Government policy -- United States; Bank failures -- United States; Intervention (Federal government) -- United States; Corporate reorganizations -- United States; Corporate turnarounds -- United States
Description: "Today's financial crisis is the result of dismal failures on the part of regulators, market analysts, and corporate executives. Yet the response of the American government has been to bail out the very institutions and individuals that have wrought such havoc upon the nation. Are such massive bailouts really called for? Can they succeed?" "Robert E. Wright and his colleagues provide an unbiased history of government bailouts and a frank assessment of their effectiveness. Their book recounts colonial America's struggle to rectify the first dangerous real estate bubble and the British government's counterproductive response. It explains how Alexander Hamilton allowed central banks and other lenders to bail out distressed but sound businesses without rewarding or encouraging the risky ones. And it shows how, in the second half of the twentieth century, governments began to bail out distressed companies, industries, and even entire economies in ways that subsidized risk takers while failing to reinvigorate the economy. By peering into the historical uses of public money to save private profit, this volume suggests better ways to control risk in the future."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Hybrid failures and bailouts : social costs, private profits / Robert E. Wright; title: Financial crises and government responses : lessons learned / Benton E. Gup; title: The evolution of the reconstruction finance corporation as a lender of last resort in the Great Depression / Joseph R. Mason; title: After the storm : the long run impact of bank bailouts / Guillermo Rosas and Nathan M. Jensen.