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Measuring Wealth and Financial Intermediation and Their Links to the Real Economy

More than half a decade has passed since the bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In retrospect, what is surprising is that these events and their consequences came as such a surprise. What was it that prevented most of the world from recognizing the impending crisis and, looking ahead, what needs to be done to prevent something similar?
           
Measuring Wealth and Financial Intermediation and Their Links to the Real Economy identifies measurement problems associated with the financial crisis and improvements in measurement that may prevent future crises, taking account of the dynamism of the financial marketplace in which measures that once worked well become misleading. In addition to advances in measuring financial activity, the contributors also investigate the effects of the crisis on households and nonfinancial businesses. They show that households’ experiences varied greatly and some even experienced gains in wealth, while nonfinancial businesses’ lack of access to credit in the recession may have been a more important factor than the effects of policies stimulating demand.

392 pages | 28 halftones, 45 line drawings, 81 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2015

National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth

Economics and Business: Economics--General Theory and Principles, Economics--Money and Banking

Table of Contents

Prefatory Note
Introduction
Charles R. Hulten and Marshall B. Reinsdorf
 
I. Advancing Economic and Financial Measurement Practice: Lessons from the Financial Crisis
 
1. Integrating the Economic Accounts: Lessons from the Crisis
Barry Bosworth
 
2. Financial Statistics for the United States and the Crisis: What Did They Get Right, What Did They Miss, and How Could They Change?
Matthew J. Eichner, Donald L. Kohn, and Michael G. Palumbo
 
3. Durable Financial Regulation: Monitoring Financial Instruments as a Counterpart to Regulating Financial Institutions
Leonard Nakamura
 
4. Shadow Banking and the Funding of the Nonfinancial Sector
Joshua Gallin

5. Financial Intermediation in the National Accounts: Asset Valuation, Intermediation, and Tobin’s q
Carol A. Corrado and Charles R. Hulten
 
II. Advances in Measuring Wealth and Financial Flows
 
6. Adding Actuarial Estimates of Defined-Benefit Pension Plans to National Accounts
Dominque Durant, David Lenze, and Marshall B. Reinsdorf
 
7. The Return on US Direct Investment at Home and Abroad
Stephanie E. Curcuru and Charles P. Thomas
 
8. US International Financial Flows and the US Net Investment Position: New Perspectives Arising from New International Standards
Christopher A. Gohrband and Kristy L. Howell
 
III. How did the Financial Crisis Affect Households and Businesses?
 
9. Household Debt and Saving during the 2007 Recession
Rajashri Chakrabarti, Donghoon Lee, Wilbert van der Klaauw, and Basit Zafar
 
10. Drowning or Weathering the Storm? Changes in Family Finances from 2007 to 2009
Jesse Bricker, Brian Bucks, Arthur Kennickell, Traci Mach, and Kevin Moore
 
11. The Misfortune of Nonfinancial Firms in a Financial Crisis: Disentangling Finance and Demand Shocks
Hui Tong and Shang-Jin Wei
 
Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index

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