Washoe County Library System is the public library system of Washoe County, Nevada .
113-562: In 2002 it had a bond for new branches and extensive renovations and in a span of several months library usage increased by 17%. The library system did financially well until 2009 with the Great Recession . The county cut 500 county jobs then, and by 2015 there had been a 40% decline in the number of employees and in the library system's budget. By 2016 the library system was removing thousands of books which were not parts of historical collections and which had not been checked out by patrons in
226-496: A PPP exchange rate offers a better alternative for comparison. In 2011, the Big Mac Index was used to identify manipulation of inflation numbers by Argentina . The PPP exchange-rate calculation is controversial because of the difficulties of finding comparable baskets of goods to compare purchasing power across countries. Estimation of purchasing power parity is complicated by the fact that countries do not simply differ in
339-405: A base. Additional statistical difficulties arise with multilateral comparisons when (as is usually the case) more than two countries are to be compared. Various ways of averaging bilateral PPPs can provide a more stable multilateral comparison, but at the cost of distorting bilateral ones. These are all general issues of indexing; as with other price indices there is no way to reduce complexity to
452-478: A crisis of ideas in mainstream economics and within the economics profession, and call for a reshaping of both the economy, economic theory and the economics profession. They argue that such a reshaping should include new advances within feminist economics and ecological economics that take as their starting point the socially responsible, sensible and accountable subject in creating an economy and economic theories that fully acknowledge care for each other as well as
565-490: A minimum, there's a little 'froth' [in the U.S. housing market]...it's hard not to see that there are a lot of local bubbles". The Economist , writing at the same time, went further, saying, "[T]he worldwide rise in house prices is the biggest bubble in history". Real estate bubbles are (by definition of the word "bubble") followed by a price decrease (also known as a housing price crash ) that can result in many owners holding negative equity (a mortgage debt higher than
678-572: A resolution preventing CFTC from regulating derivatives for another six months — when Born's term of office would expire. Ultimately, it was the collapse of a specific kind of derivative, the mortgage-backed security , that triggered the economic crisis of 2008. Paul Krugman wrote in 2009 that the run on the shadow banking system was the fundamental cause of the crisis. "As the shadow banking system expanded to rival or even surpass conventional banking in importance, politicians and government officials should have realised that they were re-creating
791-757: A sharp drop in international trade , rising unemployment and slumping commodity prices. Several economists predicted that recovery might not appear until 2011 and that the recession would be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Economist Paul Krugman once commented on this as seemingly the beginning of "a second Great Depression". Governments and central banks responded with fiscal policy and monetary policy initiatives to stimulate national economies and reduce financial system risks. The recession renewed interest in Keynesian economic ideas on how to combat recessionary conditions. Economists advise that
904-528: A single number that is equally satisfying for all purposes. Nevertheless, PPPs are typically robust in the face of the many problems that arise in using market exchange rates to make comparisons. For example, in 2005 the price of a gallon of gasoline in Saudi Arabia was US$ 0.91, and in Norway the price was US$ 6.27. The significant differences in price would not contribute to accuracy in a PPP analysis, despite all of
1017-510: A tool for taking excessive risks. Examples of vulnerabilities in the public sector included: statutory gaps and conflicts between regulators; ineffective use of regulatory authority; and ineffective crisis management capabilities. Bernanke also discussed " Too big to fail " institutions, monetary policy, and trade deficits. There are several "narratives" attempting to place the causes of the recession into context, with overlapping elements. Five such narratives include: Underlying narratives #1–3
1130-409: A uniform price level ; rather, the difference in food prices may be greater than the difference in housing prices, while also less than the difference in entertainment prices. People in different countries typically consume different baskets of goods. It is necessary to compare the cost of baskets of goods and services using a price index . This is a difficult task because purchasing patterns and even
1243-465: Is a consequence of the Balassa–Samuelson effect and gives a big cost advantage to labour-intensive production of tradable goods in low income countries (like Ethiopia ), as against high income countries (like Switzerland ). The corporate cost advantage is nothing more sophisticated than access to cheaper workers, but because the pay of those workers goes farther in low-income countries than high,
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#17328585962881356-413: Is a hypothesis that growing income inequality and wage stagnation encouraged families to increase their household debt to maintain their desired living standard, fueling the bubble. Further, this greater share of income flowing to the top increased the political power of business interests, who used that power to deregulate or limit regulation of the shadow banking system. Narrative #5 challenges
1469-672: Is a measure of the price of specific goods in different countries and is used to compare the absolute purchasing power of the countries' currencies . PPP is effectively the ratio of the price of a market basket at one location divided by the price of the basket of goods at a different location. The PPP inflation and exchange rate may differ from the market exchange rate because of tariffs , and other transaction costs . The purchasing power parity indicator can be used to compare economies regarding their gross domestic product (GDP), labour productivity and actual individual consumption, and in some cases to analyse price convergence and to compare
1582-502: Is based on the law of one price , which says that, if there are no transaction costs nor trade barriers for a particular good, then the price for that good should be the same at every location. Ideally, a computer in New York and in Hong Kong should have the same price. If its price is 500 US dollars in New York and the same computer costs 2,000 HK dollars in Hong Kong, PPP theory says
1695-428: Is converted to the other country's currency using market exchange rates, one country might be inferred to have higher real GDP than the other country in one year but lower in the other. Both of these inferences would fail to reflect the reality of their relative levels of production . If one country's GDP is converted into the other country's currency using PPP exchange rates instead of observed market exchange rates,
1808-412: Is greater in rich countries than in poor countries. Nontradables tend to be labor-intensive; therefore, because labor is less expensive in poor countries and is used mostly for nontradables, nontradables are cheaper in poor countries. Wages are high in rich countries, so nontradables are relatively more expensive. PPP calculations tend to overemphasise the primary sectoral contribution, and underemphasise
1921-476: Is important. PPP exchange rates help costing but exclude profits and above all do not consider the different quality of goods among countries. The same product, for instance, can have a different level of quality and even safety in different countries, and may be subject to different taxes and transport costs. Since market exchange rates fluctuate substantially, when the GDP of one country measured in its own currency
2034-674: Is no basis for comparison between the Ethiopian labourer who lives on teff with the Thai labourer who lives on rice , because teff is not commercially available in Thailand and rice is not in Ethiopia, so the price of rice in Ethiopia or teff in Thailand cannot be determined. As a general rule, the more similar the price structure between countries, the more valid the PPP comparison. PPP levels will also vary based on
2147-517: Is still a useful concept. However, change in the relative prices of basket components can cause relative PPP to fail tests that are based on official price indexes. The global poverty line is a worldwide count of people who live below an international poverty line , referred to as the dollar-a-day line. This line represents an average of the national poverty lines of the world's poorest countries , expressed in international dollars. These national poverty lines are converted to international currency and
2260-463: Is the timing. Subprime lending increased from around 10% of mortgage origination historically to about 20% only from 2004 to 2006, with housing prices peaking in 2006. Blaming affordable housing regulations established in the 1990s for a sudden spike in subprime origination is problematic at best. A more proximate government action to the sudden rise in subprime lending was the SEC relaxing lending standards for
2373-540: The Financial Times , a spokesperson for the IMF declared: The IMF considers that GDP in purchase-power-parity (PPP) terms is not the most appropriate measure for comparing the relative size of countries to the global economy, because PPP price levels are influenced by nontraded services, which are more relevant domestically than globally. The IMF believes that GDP at market rates is a more relevant comparison. The goods that
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#17328585962882486-503: The American Enterprise Institute , which advocates for private enterprise and limited government, have asserted that private lenders were encouraged to relax lending standards by government affordable housing policies. They cite The Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, which initially required that 30 percent or more of Fannie's and Freddie's loan purchases be related to affordable housing. The legislation gave HUD
2599-478: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission , put forth a policy paper asking for feedback from regulators, lobbyists, and legislators on the question of whether derivatives should be reported, sold through a central facility, or whether capital requirements should be required of their buyers. Greenspan, Rubin, and Levitt pressured her to withdraw the paper and Greenspan persuaded Congress to pass
2712-679: The Great Depression . The causes of the Great Recession include a combination of vulnerabilities that developed in the financial system, along with a series of triggering events that began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble in 2005–2012. When housing prices fell and homeowners began to abandon their mortgages, the value of mortgage-backed securities held by investment banks declined in 2007–2008, causing several to collapse or be bailed out in September 2008. This 2007–2008 phase
2825-617: The IMF criteria for being a global recession only in the single calendar year 2009. That IMF definition requires a decline in annual real world GDP per‑capita . Despite the fact that quarterly data are being used as recession definition criteria by all G20 members , representing 85% of the world GDP , the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has decided—in the absence of a complete data set—not to declare/measure global recessions according to quarterly GDP data. The seasonally adjusted PPP ‑weighted real GDP for
2938-604: The School of Salamanca in the 16th century, and was developed in its modern form by Gustav Cassel in 1916, in The Present Situation of the Foreign Trade . While Gustav Cassel's use of PPP concept has been traditionally interpreted as his attempt to formulate a positive theory of exchange rate determination, the policy and theoretical context in which Cassel wrote about exchange rates suggests different interpretation. In
3051-600: The US dollar , the Mexican gross domestic product measured in dollars will also halve. However, this exchange rate results from international trade and financial markets. It does not necessarily mean that Mexicans are poorer by a half; if incomes and prices measured in pesos stay the same, they will be no worse off assuming that imported goods are not essential to the quality of life of individuals. Measuring income in different countries using PPP exchange rates helps to avoid this problem, as
3164-456: The cost of living between places. The calculation of the PPP, according to the OECD, is made through a basket of goods that contains a "final product list [that] covers around 3,000 consumer goods and services, 30 occupations in government, 200 types of equipment goods and about 15 construction projects". Purchasing power parity is an economic term for measuring prices at different locations. It
3277-402: The geometric mean of the exchange rates computed for individual goods. The EKS-S method (by Éltető, Köves, Szulc, and Sergeev) uses two different baskets, one for each country, and then averages the result. While these methods work for 2 countries, the exchange rates may be inconsistent if applied to 3 countries, so further adjustment may be necessary so that the rate from currency A to B times
3390-428: The short run . Theories that invoke purchasing power parity assume that in some circumstances a fall in either currency's purchasing power (a rise in its price level) would lead to a proportional decrease in that currency's valuation on the foreign exchange market. PPP exchange rates are especially useful when official exchange rates are artificially manipulated by governments. Countries with strong government control of
3503-429: The 19th and early 20th centuries, the current banking panic is a wholesale panic, not a retail panic. In the earlier episodes, depositors ran to their banks and demanded cash in exchange for their checking accounts. Unable to meet those demands, the banking system became insolvent. The current panic involved financial firms "running" on other financial firms by not renewing sale and repurchase agreements (repo) or increasing
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3616-416: The 19th century. Yet, over the past 30-plus years, we permitted the growth of a shadow banking system – opaque and laden with short term debt – that rivaled the size of the traditional banking system. Key components of the market – for example, the multitrillion-dollar repo lending market, off-balance-sheet entities, and the use of over-the-counter derivatives – were hidden from view, without
3729-537: The FCIC Republican minority dissenting report also concluded that U.S. housing policies were not a robust explanation for a wider global housing bubble. The hypothesis that a primary cause of the crisis was U.S. government housing policy requiring banks to make risky loans has been widely disputed, with Paul Krugman referring to it as "imaginary history". One of the other challenges with blaming government regulations for essentially forcing banks to make risky loans
3842-521: The Federal Reserve has been widely discussed, the main point of controversy remains the lowering of the Federal funds rate to 1% for more than a year, which, according to Austrian theorists , injected huge amounts of "easy" credit-based money into the financial system and created an unsustainable economic boom. There is an argument that Greenspan's actions in the years 2002–2004 were actually motivated by
3955-416: The Federal Reserve. Further, American International Group (AIG) had insured mortgage-backed and other securities but was not required to maintain sufficient reserves to pay its obligations when debtors defaulted on these securities. AIG was contractually required to post additional collateral with many creditors and counter-parties, touching off controversy when over $ 100 billion of U.S. taxpayer money
4068-675: The G20‑;zone, however, is a good indicator for the world GDP, and it was measured to have suffered a direct quarter on quarter decline during the three quarters from Q3‑2008 until Q1‑2009, which more accurately mark when the recession took place at the global level. According to the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (the official arbiter of U.S. recessions) the recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, and thus extended over eighteen months. The years leading up to
4181-767: The PPP-exchange rate than the nominal exchange rate in which receipts are paid). These act as a cheaper factor of production than is available to factories in richer countries. It is difficult by GDP PPP to consider the different quality of goods among the countries. The Bhagwati–Kravis–Lipsey view provides a somewhat different explanation from the Balassa–Samuelson theory. This view states that price levels for nontradables are lower in poorer countries because of differences in endowment of labor and capital, not because of lower levels of productivity. Poor countries have more labor relative to capital, so marginal productivity of labor
4294-738: The Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy," dated November 15, 2008, leaders of the Group of 20 cited the following causes: During a period of strong global growth, growing capital flows, and prolonged stability earlier this decade, market participants sought higher yields without an adequate appreciation of the risks and failed to exercise proper due diligence. At the same time, weak underwriting standards, unsound risk management practices, increasingly complex and opaque financial products, and consequent excessive leverage combined to create vulnerabilities in
4407-583: The Treasury. The Treasury had earned another $ 323B in interest on bailout loans, resulting in an $ 87B profit. Economic and political commentators have argued the Great Recession was also an important factor in the rise of populist sentiment that resulted in the election of right-wing populist President Trump in 2016, and left-wing populist Bernie Sanders ' candidacy for the Democratic nomination. Purchasing power parity Purchasing power parity ( PPP )
4520-544: The US, from $ 106,591 to $ 68,839 between 2005 and 2011. The US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission , composed of six Democratic and four Republican appointees, reported its majority findings in January 2011. It concluded that "the crisis was avoidable and was caused by: There were two Republican dissenting FCIC reports. One of them, signed by three Republican appointees, concluded that there were multiple causes. In his separate dissent to
4633-478: The United States, and 21% in Denmark. Household defaults, underwater mortgages (where the loan balance exceeds the house value), foreclosures, and fire sales are now endemic to a number of economies. Household deleveraging by paying off debts or defaulting on them has begun in some countries. It has been most pronounced in the United States, where about two-thirds of the debt reduction reflects defaults." The onset of
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4746-513: The academic definition, the recession ended in the United States in June or July 2009. Journalist Robert Kuttner has argued that 'The Great Recession' is a misnomer. According to Kuttner, "recessions are mild dips in the business cycle that are either self-correcting or soon cured by modest fiscal or monetary stimulus. Because of the continuing deflationary trap, it would be more accurate to call this decade's stagnant economy The Lesser Depression or The Great Deflation." The Great Recession met
4859-460: The bailout measures started under the Bush administration and continued during his administration as completed and mostly profitable as of December 2014 . As of January 2018 , bailout funds had been fully recovered by the government, when interest on loans is taken into consideration. A total of $ 626B was invested, loaned, or granted due to various bailout measures, while $ 390B had been returned to
4972-464: The bailouts. In 2008, TARP allocated $ 426.4 billion to various major financial institutions. However, the US collected $ 441.7 billion in return from these loans in 2010, recording a profit of $ 15.3 billion. Nonetheless, there was a political shift from the Democratic party. Examples include the rise of the Tea Party and the loss of Democratic majorities in subsequent elections. President Obama declared
5085-450: The basket in one location to the price of the basket in the other location. For example, if a basket consisting of 1 computer, 1 ton of rice, and half a ton of steel was 1000 US dollars in New York and the same goods cost 6000 HK dollars in Hong Kong, the PPP exchange rate would be 6 HK dollars for every 1 US dollar. The name purchasing power parity comes from the idea that, with the right exchange rate, consumers in every location will have
5198-453: The crisis were characterized by an exorbitant rise in asset prices and associated boom in economic demand. Further, the U.S. shadow banking system (i.e., non-depository financial institutions such as investment banks) had grown to rival the depository system yet was not subject to the same regulatory oversight, making it vulnerable to a bank run . US mortgage-backed securities , which had risks that were hard to assess, were marketed around
5311-668: The crisis) and vulnerabilities (i.e., structural weaknesses in the financial system, regulation and supervision) that amplified the shocks. Examples of triggers included: losses on subprime mortgage securities that began in 2007 and a run on the shadow banking system that began in mid-2007, which adversely affected the functioning of money markets. Examples of vulnerabilities in the private sector included: financial institution dependence on unstable sources of short-term funding such as repurchase agreements or Repos; deficiencies in corporate risk management; excessive use of leverage (borrowing to invest); and inappropriate usage of derivatives as
5424-425: The currency has the "power" to purchase are a basket of goods of different types: The more that a product falls into category 1, the further its price will be from the currency exchange rate , moving towards the PPP exchange rate. Conversely, category 2 products tend to trade close to the currency exchange rate. (See also Penn effect ). More processed and expensive products are likely to be tradable , falling into
5537-442: The current value of the property). Several sources have noted the failure of the US government to supervise or even require transparency of the financial instruments known as derivatives . Derivatives such as credit default swaps (CDSs) were unregulated or barely regulated. Michael Lewis noted CDSs enabled speculators to stack bets on the same mortgage securities. This is analogous to allowing many persons to buy insurance on
5650-863: The demand side ( e.g. , virtually no demand for pork in Islamic states) and the supply side ( e.g. , whether the existing market for a prospective entrant's product features few suppliers or instead is already near-saturated). According to Krugman and Obstfeld, this occurrence of product differentiation and segmented markets results in violations of the law of one price and absolute PPP. Over time, shifts in market structure and demand will occur, which may invalidate relative PPP. Measurement of price levels differ from country to country. Inflation data from different countries are based on different commodity baskets; therefore, exchange rate changes do not offset official measures of inflation differences. Because it makes predictions about price changes rather than price levels, relative PPP
5763-563: The differences in price levels between its member countries by calculating the ratios of PPPs for private final consumption expenditure to exchange rates. The OECD table below indicates the number of US dollars needed in each of the countries listed to buy the same representative basket of consumer goods and services that would cost US$ 100 in the United States. According to the table, an American living or travelling in Switzerland on an income denominated in US dollars would find that country to be
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#17328585962885876-517: The downturn. In advanced economies, during the five years preceding 2007, the ratio of household debt to income rose by an average of 39 percentage points, to 138 percent. In Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Norway, debt peaked at more than 200 percent of household income. A surge in household debt to historic highs also occurred in emerging economies such as Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and Lithuania. The concurrent boom in both house prices and
5989-608: The economic crisis took most people by surprise. A 2009 paper identifies twelve economists and commentators who, between 2000 and 2006, predicted a recession based on the collapse of the then-booming housing market in the United States: Dean Baker , Wynne Godley , Fred Harrison , Michael Hudson , Eric Janszen , Med Jones Steve Keen , Jakob Brøchner Madsen , Jens Kjaer Sørensen, Kurt Richebächer , Nouriel Roubini , Peter Schiff , and Robert Shiller . By 2007, real estate bubbles were still under way in many parts of
6102-405: The economic headwinds that slowed the recovery: On the political front, widespread anger at banking bailouts and stimulus measures (begun by President George W. Bush and continued or expanded by President Obama ) with few consequences for banking leadership, were a factor in driving the country politically rightward starting in 2010. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was the largest of
6215-404: The economy sometimes enforce official exchange rates that make their own currency artificially strong. By contrast, the currency's black market exchange rate is artificially weak. In such cases, a PPP exchange rate is likely the most realistic basis for economic comparison. Similarly, when exchange rates deviate significantly from their long term equilibrium due to speculative attacks or carry trade,
6328-412: The exchange rate between two currencies actually observed in the different international markets is the one that is used in the purchasing power parity comparisons, so that the same amount of goods could actually be purchased in either currency with the same beginning amount of funds. Depending on the particular theory, purchasing power parity is assumed to hold either in the long run or, more strongly, in
6441-410: The exchange rate should be 4 HK dollars for every 1 US dollar. Poverty, tariffs, transportation, and other frictions prevent the trading and purchasing of various goods, so measuring a single good can cause a large error. The PPP term accounts for this by using a basket of goods , that is, many goods with different quantities. PPP then computes an inflation and exchange rate as the ratio of the price of
6554-471: The fall of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, a major panic broke out on the inter-bank loan market. There was the equivalent of a bank run on the shadow banking system , resulting in many large and well established investment banks and commercial banks in the United States and Europe suffering huge losses and even facing bankruptcy, resulting in massive public financial assistance (government bailouts). The global recession that followed resulted in
6667-400: The fall of their currency, though their GDP PPP changed a little. PPP exchange rates are never valued because market exchange rates tend to move in their general direction, over a period of years. There is some value to knowing in which direction the exchange rate is more likely to shift over the long run. In neoclassical economic theory , the purchasing power parity theory assumes that
6780-684: The false inference will not occur. Essentially GDP measured at PPP controls for the different costs of living and price levels, usually relative to the United States dollar, enabling a more accurate estimate of a nation's level of production. The exchange rate reflects transaction values for traded goods between countries in contrast to non-traded goods, that is, goods produced for home-country use. Also, currencies are traded for purposes other than trade in goods and services, e.g. , to buy capital assets whose prices vary more than those of physical goods. Also, different interest rates , speculation , hedging or interventions by central banks can influence
6893-450: The following recovery weaker. Robert Reich claims the amount of debt in the US economy can be traced to economic inequality , assuming that middle-class wages remained stagnant while wealth concentrated at the top, and households "pull equity from their homes and overload on debt to maintain living standards". The IMF reported in April 2012: "Household debt soared in the years leading up to
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#17328585962887006-460: The foreign price of the same basket. If the prices of nontradables rise, the purchasing power of any given currency will fall in that country. Linkages between national price levels are also weakened when trade barriers and imperfectly competitive market structures occur together. Pricing to market occurs when a firm sells the same product for different prices in different markets. This is a reflection of inter-country differences in conditions on both
7119-450: The formula used to calculate price matrices. Possible formulas include GEKS-Fisher, Geary-Khamis, IDB, and the superlative method. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Linking regions presents another methodological difficulty. In the 2005 ICP round, regions were compared by using a list of some 1,000 identical items for which a price could be found for 18 countries, selected so that at least two countries would be in each region. While this
7232-654: The global line is converted back to local currency using the PPP exchange rates from the ICP. PPP exchange rates include data from the sales of high end non-poverty related items which skews the value of food items and necessary goods which is 70 percent of poor peoples' consumption. Angus Deaton argues that PPP indices need to be reweighted for use in poverty measurement; they need to be redefined to reflect local poverty measures, not global measures, weighing local food items and excluding luxury items that are not prevalent or are not of equal value in all localities. The idea originated with
7345-400: The goods available to purchase differ across countries. Thus, it is necessary to make adjustments for differences in the quality of goods and services. Furthermore, the basket of goods representative of one economy will vary from that of another: Americans eat more bread; Chinese more rice. Hence a PPP calculated using the US consumption as a base will differ from that calculated using China as
7458-405: The industrial and service sectoral contributions to the economy of a nation. The law of one price is weakened by transport costs and governmental trade restrictions, which make it expensive to move goods between markets located in different countries. Transport costs sever the link between exchange rates and the prices of goods implied by the law of one price. As transport costs increase, the larger
7571-467: The inflow of investment dollars required to fund the U.S. trade deficit was a major cause of the housing bubble and financial crisis: "The trade deficit, less than 1% of GDP in the early 1990s, hit 6% in 2006. That deficit was financed by inflows of foreign savings, in particular from East Asia and the Middle East. Much of that money went into dodgy mortgages to buy overvalued houses, and the financial crisis
7684-533: The kind of financial vulnerability that made the Great Depression possible – and they should have responded by extending regulations and the financial safety net to cover these new institutions. Influential figures should have proclaimed a simple rule: anything that does what a bank does, anything that has to be rescued in crises the way banks are, should be regulated like a bank." He referred to this lack of controls as "malign neglect". During 2008, three of
7797-564: The label PPP-adjusted . There can be marked differences between purchasing power adjusted incomes and those converted via market exchange rates. A well-known purchasing power adjustment is the Geary–Khamis dollar (the GK dollar or international dollar ). The World Bank's World Development Indicators 2005 estimated that in 2003, one Geary–Khamis dollar was equivalent to about 1.8 Chinese yuan by purchasing power parity —considerably different from
7910-568: The largest U.S. investment banks either went bankrupt ( Lehman Brothers ) or were sold at fire sale prices to other banks ( Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch ). The investment banks were not subject to the more stringent regulations applied to depository banks. These failures exacerbated the instability in the global financial system. The remaining two investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs , potentially facing failure, opted to become commercial banks, thereby subjecting themselves to more stringent regulation but receiving access to credit via
8023-581: The main headline is that all sorts of poor countries became kind of rich, making things like TVs and selling us oil. China, India, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia made a lot of money and banked it." Describing the crisis in Europe, Paul Krugman wrote in February 2012 that: "What we're basically looking at, then, is a balance of payments problem, in which capital flooded south after the creation of the euro, leading to overvaluation in southern Europe." Another narrative about
8136-462: The majority and minority opinions of the FCIC, Commissioner Peter J. Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) primarily blamed U.S. housing policy, including the actions of Fannie and Freddie , for the crisis. He wrote: "When the bubble began to deflate in mid-2007, the low quality and high risk loans engendered by government policies failed in unprecedented numbers." In its "Declaration of
8249-558: The market exchange rate. The market rate is more volatile because it reacts to changes in demand at each location. Also, tariffs and differences in the price of labour (see Balassa–Samuelson theorem ) can contribute to longer-term differences between the two rates. One use of PPP is to predict longer-term exchange rates. Because PPP exchange rates are more stable and are less affected by tariffs, they are used for many international comparisons, such as comparing countries' GDPs or other national income statistics. These numbers often come with
8362-418: The metrics give an understanding of relative wealth regarding local goods and services at domestic markets. On the other hand, it is poor for measuring the relative cost of goods and services in international markets. The reason is it does not take into account how much US$ 1 stands for in a respective country. Using the above-mentioned example: in an international market, Mexicans can buy less than Americans after
8475-662: The need to take the U.S. economy out of the early 2000s recession caused by the bursting of the dot-com bubble : although by doing so he did not avert the crisis, but only postponed it. Another narrative focuses on high levels of private debt in the US economy. USA household debt as a percentage of annual disposable personal income was 127% at the end of 2007, versus 77% in 1990. Faced with increasing mortgage payments as their adjustable rate mortgage payments increased, households began to default in record numbers, rendering mortgage-backed securities worthless. High private debt levels also impact growth by making recessions deeper and
8588-533: The nominal exchange rate. This discrepancy has large implications; for instance, when converted via the nominal exchange rates, GDP per capita in India is about US$ 1,965 while on a PPP basis, it is about Int$ 7,197. At the other extreme, Denmark's nominal GDP per capita is around US$ 53,242, but its PPP figure is Int$ 46,602, in line with other developed nations . There are variations in calculating PPP. The EKS method (developed by Ö. Éltető, P. Köves and B. Szulc) uses
8701-535: The obligation and defaulted; U.S. taxpayers paid over $ 100 billion to global financial institutions to honor AIG obligations, generating considerable outrage. A 2008 investigative article in The Washington Post found leading government officials at the time (Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan , Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin , and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt ) vehemently opposed any regulation of derivatives. In 1998, Brooksley E. Born , head of
8814-484: The origin has been focused on the respective parts played by public monetary policy (notably in the US) and by the practices of private financial institutions. In the U.S., mortgage funding was unusually decentralised, opaque, and competitive, and it is believed that competition between lenders for revenue and market share contributed to declining underwriting standards and risky lending. While Alan Greenspan's role as Chairman of
8927-530: The planet. Though no one knew they were in it at the time, the Great Recession had a significant economic and political impact on the United States. While the recession technically lasted from December 2007 – June 2009 (the nominal GDP trough), many important economic variables did not regain pre-recession (November or Q4 2007) levels until 2011–2016. For example, real GDP fell $ 650 billion (4.3%) and did not recover its $ 15 trillion pre-recession level until Q3 2011. Household net worth, which reflects
9040-518: The popular claim (narrative #4) that subprime borrowers with shoddy credit caused the crisis by buying homes they couldn't afford. This narrative is supported by new research showing that the biggest growth of mortgage debt during the U.S. housing boom came from those with good credit scores in the middle and top of the credit score distribution—and that these borrowers accounted for a disproportionate share of defaults. The Economist wrote in July 2012 that
9153-512: The power to set future requirements. These rose to 42 percent in 1995 and 50 percent in 2000, and by 2008 a 56 percent minimum was established. However, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) Democratic majority report concluded that Fannie & Freddie "were not a primary cause" of the crisis and that CRA was not a factor in the crisis. Further, since housing bubbles appeared in multiple countries in Europe as well,
9266-509: The previous four years. Seven of the libraries have geocaches . Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At the time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded that it was the most severe economic and financial meltdown since
9379-410: The protections we had constructed to prevent financial meltdowns. We had a 21st-century financial system with 19th-century safeguards. The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (1999), which reduced the regulation of banks by allowing commercial and investment banks to merge, has also been blamed for the crisis, by Nobel Prize –winning economist Joseph Stiglitz among others. Peter Wallison and Edward Pinto of
9492-467: The purchasing power parity of a country in the international markets. The PPP method is used as an alternative to correct for possible statistical bias. The Penn World Table is a widely cited source of PPP adjustments, and the associated Penn effect reflects such a systematic bias in using exchange rates to outputs among countries. For example, if the value of the Mexican peso falls by half compared to
9605-481: The range of exchange rate fluctuations. The same is true for official trade restrictions because the customs fees affect importers' profits in the same way as shipping fees. According to Krugman and Obstfeld, "Either type of trade impediment weakens the basis of PPP by allowing the purchasing power of a given currency to differ more widely from country to country." They cite the example that a dollar in London should purchase
9718-560: The rate from B to C equals the rate from A to C. Relative PPP is a weaker statement based on the law of one price, covering changes in the exchange rate and inflation rates. It seems to mirror the exchange rate closer than PPP does. Purchasing power parity exchange rate is used when comparing national production and consumption and other places where the prices of non-traded goods are considered important. (Market exchange rates are used for individual goods that are traded). PPP rates are more stable over time and can be used when that attribute
9831-402: The recession have been described as a symptom of another, deeper crisis by a number of economists. For example, Ravi Batra argues that growing inequality of financial capitalism produces speculative bubbles that burst and result in depression and major political changes . Feminist economists Ailsa McKay and Margunn Bjørnholt argue that the financial crisis and the response to it revealed
9944-488: The recovery was that both individuals and businesses paid down debts for several years, as opposed to borrowing and spending or investing as had historically been the case. This shift to a private sector surplus drove a sizable government deficit. However, the federal government held spending at about $ 3.5 trillion from fiscal years 2009–2014 (thereby decreasing it as a percent of GDP), a form of austerity . Then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke explained during November 2012 several of
10057-418: The relative pay differentials (inter-country) can be sustained for longer than would be the case otherwise. (This is another way of saying that the wage rate is based on average local productivity and that this is below the per capita productivity that factories selling tradable goods to international markets can achieve.) An equivalent cost benefit comes from non-traded goods that can be sourced locally (nearer
10170-461: The repo margin ("haircut"), forcing massive deleveraging, and resulting in the banking system being insolvent. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported in January 2011: In the early part of the 20th century, we erected a series of protections – the Federal Reserve as a lender of last resort , federal deposit insurance, ample regulations – to provide a bulwark against the panics that had regularly plagued America's banking system in
10283-448: The same purchasing power . The value of the PPP exchange rate is very dependent on the basket of goods chosen. In general, goods are chosen that might closely obey the law of one price. Thus, one attempts to select goods which are traded easily and are commonly available in both locations. Organizations that compute PPP exchange rates use different baskets of goods and can come up with different values. The PPP exchange rate may not match
10396-462: The same goods as a dollar in Chicago, which is certainly not the case. Nontradables are primarily services and the output of the construction industry. Nontradables also lead to deviations in PPP because the prices of nontradables are not linked internationally. The prices are determined by domestic supply and demand, and shifts in those curves lead to changes in the market basket of some goods relative to
10509-496: The same house. Speculators that bought CDS protection were betting significant mortgage security defaults would occur, while the sellers (such as AIG ) bet they would not. An unlimited amount could be wagered on the same housing-related securities, provided buyers and sellers of the CDS could be found. When massive defaults occurred on underlying mortgage securities, companies like AIG that were selling CDS were unable to perform their side of
10622-499: The second category, and drifting from the PPP exchange rate to the currency exchange rate. Even if the PPP "value" of the Ethiopian currency is three times stronger than the currency exchange rate, it will not buy three times as much of internationally traded goods like steel, cars and microchips, but non-traded goods like housing, services ("haircuts"), and domestically produced crops. The relative price differential between tradables and non-tradables from high-income to low-income countries
10735-421: The statistical capacity of participating countries. The International Comparison Program (ICP), which PPP estimates are based on, require the disaggregation of national accounts into production, expenditure or (in some cases) income, and not all participating countries routinely disaggregate their data into such categories. Some aspects of PPP comparison are theoretically impossible or unclear. For example, there
10848-518: The stimulus measures such as quantitative easing (pumping money into the system) and holding down central bank wholesale lending interest rate should be withdrawn as soon as economies recover enough to "chart a path to sustainable growth ". The distribution of household incomes in the United States became more unequal during the post-2008 economic recovery . Income inequality in the United States grew from 2005 to 2012 in more than two thirds of metropolitan areas. Median household wealth fell 35% in
10961-649: The stock market meant that household debt relative to assets held broadly stable, which masked households' growing exposure to a sharp fall in asset prices. When house prices declined, ushering in the global financial crisis, many households saw their wealth shrink relative to their debt, and, with less income and more unemployment, found it harder to meet mortgage payments. By the end of 2011, real house prices had fallen from their peak by about 41% in Ireland, 29% in Iceland, 23% in Spain and
11074-490: The system. Policy-makers, regulators and supervisors, in some advanced countries, did not adequately appreciate and address the risks building up in financial markets, keep pace with financial innovation, or take into account the systemic ramifications of domestic regulatory actions. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified in September 2010 before the FCIC regarding the causes of the crisis. He wrote that there were shocks or triggers (i.e., particular events that touched off
11187-492: The top investment banks during an April 2004 meeting with bank leaders. These banks increased their risk-taking shortly thereafter, significantly increasing their purchases and securitization of lower-quality mortgages, thus encouraging additional subprime and Alt-A lending by mortgage companies. This action by its investment bank competitors also resulted in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taking on more risk. The financial crisis and
11300-515: The value of both stock markets and housing prices, fell $ 11.5 trillion (17.3%) and did not regain its pre-recession level of $ 66.4 trillion until Q3 2012. The number of persons with jobs (total non-farm payrolls) fell 8.6 million (6.2%) and did not regain the pre-recession level of 138.3 million until May 2014. The unemployment rate peaked at 10.0% in October 2009 and did not return to its pre-recession level of 4.7% until May 2016. A key dynamic slowing
11413-414: The variables that contribute to the significant differences in price. More comparisons have to be made and used as variables in the overall formulation of the PPP. When PPP comparisons are to be made over some interval of time, proper account needs to be made of inflationary effects. In addition to methodological issues presented by the selection of a basket of goods, PPP estimates can also vary based on
11526-453: The word "recession" exist: one sense referring definitively to "a period of reduced economic activity" and ongoing hardship; and the more allegoric interpretation used in economics , which is defined operationally , referring specifically to the contraction phase of a business cycle , with two or more consecutive quarters of GDP contraction (negative GDP growth rate) and typically used to influence abrupt changes in monetary policy. Under
11639-660: The world, especially in the United States , France, the United Kingdom , Spain , the Netherlands, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand , Ireland , Poland , South Africa , Greece , Bulgaria , Croatia , Norway , Singapore , South Korea , Sweden , Finland , Argentina , the Baltic states , India , Romania , Ukraine and China . U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in mid-2005 that "at
11752-454: The world, as they offered higher yields than U.S. government bonds. Many of these securities were backed by subprime mortgages, which collapsed in value when the U.S. housing bubble burst during 2006 and homeowners began to default on their mortgage payments in large numbers starting in 2007. The emergence of subprime loan losses in 2007 began the crisis and exposed other risky loans and over-inflated asset prices. With loan losses mounting and
11865-442: The years immediately preceding the end of WWI and following it economists and politicians were involved in discussions on possible ways of restoring the gold standard , which would automatically restore the system of fixed exchange rates among participating nations. The stability of exchange rates was widely believed to be crucial for restoring the international trade and for its further stable and balanced growth. Nobody then
11978-718: Was able to accurately predict the advance of this recession, except for minor signals in the sudden rise of forecast probabilities, which were still well under 50%. The recession was not felt equally around the world; whereas most of the world's developed economies , particularly in North America, South America and Europe, fell into a severe, sustained recession, many more recently developing economies suffered far less impact, particularly China , India and Indonesia , whose economies grew substantially during this period. Similarly, Oceania suffered minimal impact , in part due to its proximity to Asian markets. Two interpretations of
12091-421: Was called the subprime mortgage crisis . The combination of banks being unable to provide funds to businesses, and homeowners paying down debt rather than borrowing and spending, resulted in the Great Recession that began in the U.S. officially in December 2007 and lasted until June 2009, thus extending over 19 months. As with most other recessions, it appears that no known formal theoretical or empirical model
12204-458: Was mentally prepared for the idea that flexible exchange rates determined by market forces do not necessarily cause chaos and instability in the peaceful time (and that is what the abandoning of the gold standard during the war was blamed for). Gustav Cassel was among those who supported the idea of restoring the gold standard, although with some alterations. The question, which Gustav Cassel tried to answer in his works written during that period,
12317-425: Was not how exchange rates are determined in the free market, but rather how to determine the appropriate level at which exchange rates were to be fixed during the restoration of the system of fixed exchange rates. His recommendation was to fix exchange rates at the level corresponding to the PPP, as he believed that this would prevent trade imbalances between trading nations. Thus, PPP doctrine proposed by Cassel
12430-483: Was not really a positive (descriptive) theory of exchange rate determination (as Cassel was perfectly aware of numerous factors that prevent exchange rates from stabilizing at PPP level if allowed to float), but rather a normative (prescriptive) policy advice, formulated in the context of discussions on returning to the gold standard. Each month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) measures
12543-453: Was paid out to major global financial institutions on behalf of AIG. While this money was legally owed to the banks by AIG (under agreements made via credit default swaps purchased from AIG by the institutions), a number of Congressmen and media members expressed outrage that taxpayer money was used to bail out banks. Economist Gary Gorton wrote in May 2009 Unlike the historical banking panics of
12656-458: Was superior to earlier "bridging" methods, which do not fully take into account differing quality between goods, it may serve to overstate the PPP basis of poorer countries, because the price indexing on which PPP is based will assign to poorer countries the greater weight of goods consumed in greater shares in richer countries. There are a number of reasons that different measures do not perfectly reflect standard of living . In 2011, interviewed by
12769-402: Was the result." In May 2008, NPR explained in their Peabody Award winning program " The Giant Pool of Money " that a vast inflow of savings from developing nations flowed into the mortgage market, driving the U.S. housing bubble. This pool of fixed income savings increased from around $ 35 trillion in 2000 to about $ 70 trillion by 2008. NPR explained this money came from various sources, "[b]ut
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