This book investigates three sets of questions raised by the economic downturn, corresponding to the three sections of the book. The first concerns issues of ethics and social responsibility in economic policymaking and in business and finance; how the costs of the downturn have fallen within the...

Consumption risk sharing among U.S. federal states increases in booms and decreases in recessions. We find that small firms' access to credit markets plays an important role in explaining this stylized fact: business cycle fluctuations in aggregate risk sharing are more pronounced in states in...