Introduction: To Bail or Not to Bail?; 1. Hybrid Failures and Bailouts: Social Costs, Private Profits; 2. Financial Crises and Government Responses: Lessons Learned; 3. The Evolution of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as a Lender of Last Resort in the Great Depression; 4. After the Storm: The Long-Run Impact of Bank Bailouts; List of Contributors
Summary
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 Britis
