Abstract
The Great Recession presented the US with economic and political challenges that had not been experienced since the time of the Great Depression. This article provides a retrospective on the government’s response to the crisis ten years after the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act, as the country is heading into its next presidential election in the midst of yet another downturn, this time fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Alvarez, S. and W. Dudley (2018, 11–12 September), Nonbank Financial Institutions: New Vulnerabilities and Old Tools, Discussion paper presented at Responding to the Global Financial Crisis, Brookings Institution.
Bernanke, B. (2018, 11 September), Responding to the Global Financial
Crisis, Conference proceedings, Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/es_20180911_financial_crisis_day1_transcript.pdf (13 July 2020).
Blyth, M. (2002), Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press.
Dudley, W. (2018, 11 September), Responding to the Global Financial Crisis, Conference proceedings, Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/es_20180911_financial_crisis_day1_transcript.pdf (13 July 2020).
Eichengreen, B. (2016), Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses-and Misuses-of History, Oxford University Press.
Fligstein, N. and T. Shin (2007), Shareholder Value and the Transformation of the U.S. Economy, 1984–2000, Sociological Forum, 22, 399–424.
Geithner, T. (2018, 12 September), Responding to the Global Financial Crisis, Conference proceedings, Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/es_20180912_financial_crisis_day2_transcript.pdf (13 July 2020).
Grusky, D., B. Western and C. Wimer (2011), Great Recession, Russell Sage Foundation.
Hay, C. (2001), The “Crisis” of Keynesianism and the Rise of Neo-liberalism in Britain: An Ideational Institutionalist Approach, in J. L. Campbell and O. K. Pedersen (eds.), The Rise of Neo-liberalism and Institutional Analysis, 193–218, Princeton University Press.
Judis, J. B. (2016), The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics, Columbia Global Reports.
Kashkari, N. (2018, 11 September), Responding to the Global Financial Crisis, Conference proceedings, Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/es_20180911_financial_crisis_day1_transcript.pdf (13 July 2020).
Keynes, J. M. (1933, 31 December), From Keynes to Roosevelt: Our recovery plan assayed, The New York Times.
Krippner, G. (2011), Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance, Harvard University Press.
Krugman, P. (2008, 29 November), The Keynesian moment, https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/the-keynesian-moment/, The New York Times.
Martin, I. W. and C. Niedt (2015), Foreclosed America, Stanford University Press.
Mosser, P. C. (2018, 11 September), Responding to the Global Financial Crisis, Conference proceedings, Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/es_20180911_financial_crisis_day1_transcript.pdf (13 July 2020).
Paulson, H. (2018, 12 September), Responding to the Global Financial Crisis, Conference proceedings, Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/es_20180912_financial_crisis_day2_transcript.pdf (13 July 2020).
Peterson, C. L. (2019, 11 February), Dormant: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Law Enforcement Program in Decline, Consumer Federation of America.
Piven, F. F. and R. A. Cloward (1977), Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, Pantheon.
Responding to the Global Financial Crisis (2018, 11 September), Conference proceedings, Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/es_20180911_financial_crisis_day1_transcript.pdf (13 July 2020).
Romer, C. (2010, 15 January), Economic Policy in the First Year of the Obama Administration, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2010/01/15/economic-policy-first-year-obama-administration.
U.S. Congress (1929), Congressional Record: Proceedings and debates of the first session of the seventy-first Congress of the United States of America, LXXI-Part 5.
U.S. Department of the Treasury (2020), https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-markets-financial-institutions-and-fiscal-service/fsoc/designations.
Vogel, D. (2012), The Politics of Precaution: Regulating Health, Safety and Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States, Princeton University Press.
Webel, B. (2013), Troubled Asset Relief Program: Implementation and Status, 2013, in Congressional Research Service.
Wolf, E. N. (2012), The Asset Price Meltdown and the Wealth of the Middle Class, NBER Working Paper, 18559.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
An earlier version of this was presented at MaxPo in Paris. I thank those in the audience for their feedback. Many thanks also to Onur Ozgode for reading an earlier draft of this article and giving helpful feedback. All errors are my own.
Basak Kus, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Kus, B. Relief, Recovery, Reform: A Retrospective on the US Policy Responses to the Great Recession. Intereconomics 55, 257–265 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10272-020-0910-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10272-020-0910-4