This paper studies the long term consequences on workers' labour earnings of the credit crunch induced by the 2007-2008 financial crisis. We study the evolution of both employment and wages in a large sample of Italian workers followed for nine years after the start of the crisis. We rely on a unique matched bank-employer-employee administrative dataset to construct a firm-specific shock to credit supply, which identifies firms that, because of the collapse of the interbank market during the financial crisis, were unexpectedly aected by credit restrictions. We find that workers who were employed before the crisis in firms more exposed to the credit crunch experience persistent and sizable earnings losses, mainly due to a permanent drop in days worked. These effects are heterogeneous across workers, with high-type workers being more affected in the long run. Moreover, firms operating in areas with favorable labor market conditions react to the credit shock by hoarding high-type workers and displacing low-type ones. Under unfavorable labor market conditions instead, firms select to displace also high-type (and therefore more expensive) workers, even though wages do react to the slack. All in all, our results document persistent eects on the earnings distribution.

This paper studies the long-term consequences on firms and workers of the credit crunch triggered by the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Relying on a unique matched bank-employer-employee administrative dataset, we construct a firm-specific credit supply shock and examine firms' and workers' outcomes for 11 years after the crisis. We find that highly-exposed firms shrink permanently and invest less; these effects are larger for high capital-intensive firms. The impact on workers' earnings is also long-lasting, especially for high skilled workers, who are more complementary to capital. Displaced workers reallocate mostly to low capital-intensive firms, experiencing persistent wage losses.

This important new book from a group of Keynesian, but nonetheless technically-oriented economists explores one of the dominant paradigms in financial economics: the ‘intertemporal general equilibrium approach’.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.

The present international financial market is characterized by remarkably high financial volatility, which reflects a substantial loss of confidence, drying up inter-bank credit and spiking short-term interest rates. Inflationary pressures combined with financial risks, both originating in the energy sector, further complicate the transmission mechanism of impulses in the global economy. This financial disruption must be tackled at its root. Securitization and deregulation created unbalanced and unfunded risks and harmed the shaky fundamentals of the financial system. But a lack of international economic coordination produced disorder, which weakens the responsibility of market players.

What tools are available for setting and analyzing monetary policy? World-renowned contributors examine recent evidence on subjects as varied as price-setting, inflation persistence, the private sector's formation of inflation expectations, and the monetary policy transmission mechanism. Stopping short of advocating conclusions about the ideal conduct of policy, the authors focus instead on analytical methods and the changing interactions among the ingredients and properties that inform monetary models. The influences between economic performance and monetary policy regimes can be both grand and muted, and this volume clarifies the present state of this continually evolving relationship. - Explores the models and practices used in formulating and transmitting monetary policies - Raises new questions about the volume, price, and availability of credit in the 2007-2010 downturn - Questions fiscal-monetary connnections and encourages new thinking about the business cycle itself - Observes changes in the formulation of monetary policies over the last 25 years

We estimate the effect of the sharp reduction in credit supply following the 2008 financial crisis on the real economy. The identification strategy relies on the substantial heterogeneity in the degree to which banks cut lending over this period. Specifically, we predict changes in county-level small business lending over 2007-2009 by estimating the national change in each bank's lending that is attributable to supply factors (e.g., due to differences in the crisis' effect on their balance sheets) and, subsequently, allocating this quantity to counties based on the banks' pre-crisis market shares. We find that in 2008, 2009, and 2010, this measure is highly predictive of total county-level small business loan originations indicating that, at least in the near term, a firm cannot easily find a new lender if its bank limits access to credit. Additionally, we find that areas with more exposure to banks that cut small business lending during this period experience depressed employment and business formation. Upper bound estimates suggest that the 2007-2009 decline in small business lending accounted for up to 20% of the decline in employment in firms with less than 20 employees, 16% of the total employment loss, and 30% of the decline in inflation adjusted aggregate wages during this period. Finally, we note that the relationship between lending supply and economic activity is not evident in the 1997-2007 period, underscoring the unique circumstances during the Great Recession.