Volume 7, Issue 2

Casey Mulligan suggested in The Economists' Voice that this recession was caused by "something [that] made real wages high and employment low." This coincides with his own view of the causes of the Great Depression. The similarity inevitably brings back General-Theory-Keynes, according to Da Silva, and justifies the suspicion of some salt water economists that Mulligan is blaming both downturns on laziness.

Financial globalization cannot evolve in a vacuum. Dev Kar argues that real globalization in product markets is the ultimate source of financial globalization and must enter the equation when considering remedies.

Casey Mulligan is not swayed by Barbera or Krugman's attacks on the Chicago School of economics. In fact, Mulligan argues that labor market distortions and not a banking collapse are critical to understanding our current deep recession.

New classical economics should not be judged based upon what theorists say today about the 2008-2009 crisis, but instead by looking at what economists like Casey Mulligan said as the crisis was unfolding. Once scrutiny is given to what new classical economics lead adherents believe in late 2008, Robert Barbera wonders how any rational thinker could continue to defend the framework.

Many in finance, particularly the more lightly regulated areas of finance like hedge funds, are shocked at the idea of the government's prying eyes and intrusion in their business affairs. They shouldn't be: the government has long been intrusive when it comes to large mergers because they can threaten the public's interest. Merger policy could provide a useful guide for financial reform according to Aaron Edlin and Richard Gilbert, two antitrust specialists from UC Berkeley.

Why have the relative rates of women smoking grown so much in the last 100 years? How can the U.S. military do so well with a relatively flat pay scale? Standard economics hasn't a clue, but according to Berkeley economist George Akerlof and Duke economist Rachel Kranton, the answers lie in a new field called identity economics.