The global financial crisis of 2008–9 has changed the way people around the world think about development. The market-friendly, lightly regulated model of capitalism promoted by the United States is now at risk, and development thinking worldwide is at something of an impasse. Editors Nancy Birdsall and Francis Fukuyama bring together leading scholars to explore the implications of the global financial crisis on existing and future development strategies. In addressing this issue, the contributors contemplate three central questions: What effect has the crisis had on current ideas in development thinking? How has it affected and how will it affect economic policy and political realities in Latin America and Asia, including China and India? Will the financial collapse reinforce shifts in geopolitical power and influence, and in what form? Essays answering these questions identify themes that are essential as economic and political leaders address future challenges of development. To help move beyond this time of global economic turmoil, the contributors—the foremost minds in the field of international development—offer innovative ideas about stabilizing the international economy and promoting global development strategies. Contributors: Nancy Birdsall, Center for Global Development; Michael Clemens, Center for Global Development; Kemal Dervis, Brookings Institution; Larry Diamond, Stanford University; Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University; Peter S. Heller, Johns Hopkins University; Yasheng Huang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Justin Yifu Lin, World Bank; José Antonio Ocampo, Columbia University; Mitchell A. Orenstein, Johns Hopkins University; Minxin Pei, Claremont McKenna College; Lant Pritchett, Harvard University; Liliana Rojas-Suarez, Center for Global Development; Arvid Subramanian, Johns Hopkins University

The global financial crisis of 2008–9 has changed the way people around the world think about development. The market-friendly, lightly regulated model of capitalism promoted by the United States is now at risk, and development thinking worldwide is at something of an impasse. Editors Nancy Birdsall and Francis Fukuyama bring together leading scholars to explore the implications of the global financial crisis on existing and future development strategies. In addressing this issue, the contributors contemplate three central questions: What effect has the crisis had on current ideas in development thinking? How has it affected and how will it affect economic policy and political realities in Latin America and Asia, including China and India? Will the financial collapse reinforce shifts in geopolitical power and influence, and in what form? Essays answering these questions identify themes that are essential as economic and political leaders address future challenges of development. To help move beyond this time of global economic turmoil, the contributors—the foremost minds in the field of international development—offer innovative ideas about stabilizing the international economy and promoting global development strategies. Contributors: Nancy Birdsall, Center for Global Development; Michael Clemens, Center for Global Development; Kemal Dervis, Brookings Institution; Larry Diamond, Stanford University; Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University; Peter S. Heller, Johns Hopkins University; Yasheng Huang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Justin Yifu Lin, World Bank; José Antonio Ocampo, Columbia University; Mitchell A. Orenstein, Johns Hopkins University; Minxin Pei, Claremont McKenna College; Lant Pritchett, Harvard University; Liliana Rojas-Suarez, Center for Global Development; Arvid Subramanian, Johns Hopkins University

In Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, Mark Blyth, a renowned scholar of political economy, provides a powerful and trenchant account of the shift toward austerity policies by governments throughout the world since 2009. The issue is at the crux about how to emerge from the Great Recession, and will drive the debate for the foreseeable future.

Over a decade has passed since the collapse of the U.S. investment bank, Lehman Brothers, marked the onset of the largest global economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis revealed major shortcomings in market discipline, regulation and supervision, and reopened important policy debates on financial regulation. Since the onset of the crisis, emphasis has been placed on better regulation of banking systems and on enhancing the tools available to supervisory agencies to oversee banks and intervene speedily in case of distress. Drawing on ten years of data and analysis, Global Financial Development Report 2019/2020 provides evidence on the regulatory remedies adopted to prevent future financial troubles, and sheds light on important policy concerns. To what extent are regulatory reforms designed with high-income countries in mind appropriate for developing countries? What has been the impact of reforms on market discipline and bank capital? How should countries balance the political and social demands for a safety net for users of the financial system with potentially severe moral hazard consequences? Are higher capital requirements damaging to the flow of credit? How should capital regulation be designed to improve stability and access? The report provides a synthesis of what we know, as well as areas where more evidence is still needed. Global Financial Development Report 2019/2020 is the fifth in a World Bank series. The accompanying website tracks financial systems in more than 200 economies before, during, and after the global financial crisis (http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/gfdr) and provides information on how banking systems are regulated and supervised around the world (http://www.worldbank.org/en/research/brief/BRSS).

The financial crisis of 2008 devastated the American economy and caused U.S. policymakers to rethink their approaches to major financial crises. More than five years have passed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, but questions still persist about the best ways to avoid and respond to future financial crises. In Across the Great Divide, a co-publication with Brookings Institution, contributing economic and legal scholars from academia, industry, and government analyze the financial crisis of 2008, from its causes and effects on the U.S. economy to the way ahead. The expert contributors consider post-crisis regulatory policy reforms and emerging financial and economic trends, including the roles played by highly accommodative monetary policy, securitization run amok, government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), large asset bubbles, excessive leverage, and the Federal funds rate, among other potential causes. They discuss the role played by the Federal Reserve and examine the concept of "too big to fail." And they review and assess resolution frameworks, considering experiences with Lehman Bros. and other firms in the crisis, Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act, and the Chapter 14 bankruptcy code proposal.

From one of the world’s leading economists and his coauthors, a cutting-edge analysis of what drives economic growth and a blueprint for prosperity under capitalism. Crisis seems to follow crisis. Inequality is rising, growth is stagnant, the environment is suffering, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed every crack in the system. We hear more and more calls for radical change, even the overthrow of capitalism. But the answer to our problems is not revolution. The answer is to create a better capitalism by understanding and harnessing the power of creative destruction—innovation that disrupts, but that over the past two hundred years has also lifted societies to previously unimagined prosperity. To explain, Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, and Simon Bunel draw on cutting-edge theory and evidence to examine today’s most fundamental economic questions, including the roots of growth and inequality, competition and globalization, the determinants of health and happiness, technological revolutions, secular stagnation, middle-income traps, climate change, and how to recover from economic shocks. They show that we owe our modern standard of living to innovations enabled by free-market capitalism. But we also need state intervention with the appropriate checks and balances to simultaneously foster ongoing economic creativity, manage the social disruption that innovation leaves in its wake, and ensure that yesterday’s superstar innovators don’t pull the ladder up after them to thwart tomorrow’s. A powerful and ambitious reappraisal of the foundations of economic success and a blueprint for change, The Power of Creative Destruction shows that a fair and prosperous future is ultimately ours to make.

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.