• A
  • A
  • A
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
Regular version of the site

G. Yavlinsky The Hidden Cause of the Great Recession (And How to Avert the Next One). New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2011

This book directly confronts uncomfortable questions that many prefer to brush aside: if economists and other scholars, politicians, and business professionals understand the causes of economic crises, as they claim, then why do such damaging crises continue to occur?

G. Yavlinsky. The Hidden Cause of the Great Recession (And How to Avert the Next One). New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2011 — ISBN 9780300159103

This book directly confronts uncomfortable questions that many prefer to brush aside: if economists and other scholars, politicians, and business professionals understand the causes of economic crises, as they claim, then why do such damaging crises continue to occur? Can we trust business and intellectual elites who advocate the principles of Realpolitik and claim the «public good» as their priority, yet consistently favor maximization of profit over ethical issues?

Former deputy prime minister of Russia Grigory Yavlinsky, an internationally respected free-market economist, makes a powerful case that the often-cited causes of global economic instability — institutional failings, wrong decisions by regulators, insufficient or incorrect information, and the like — are only secondary to a far more significant underlying cause: the failure to understand that universal social norms are essential to thriving businesses and social and economic progress. Yavlinsky explores the widespread disregard for moral values in business decisions and calls for restoration of principled behavior in politics and economic practices. The unwelcome alternative, he warns, will be a twenty-first-century global economy in the grip of unending crises.

Grigory Yavlinsky is a Russian economist and founder and member of the Russian United Democratic Party (YABLOKO). As deputy prime minister of Russia in 1990, he wrote the first Russian economic program for transition to a free-market economy, 500 Days. He lives in Moscow.

Reviews

«Grigory Yavlinsky’s book is an important contribution to understanding the interplay between social norms and modern economy. The current global crisis makes his analysis especially relevant.» — George Soros

«Reading Grigory Yavlinsky's remarkable book, I was reminded of Adam Smith, also a moral philosopher concerned with the correlation between individual aspirations and the enlightened evolution of society. It is invaluable to have the perspective of an intellectual such as Yavlinsky writing in the shadow of swiftly moving events on the global stage. He explains how market mechanisms influence international developments ranging from instability in European markets to the recent ‘Great Recession’ in the United States.» — Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York

«Yavlinsky provides a new and in-depth interpretation of the events leading to the current recession and broader interpretations of how to avoid future ones. Realeconomik has my enthusiastic endorsement.» — Michael D. Intriligator, University of California, Los Angeles

«With clarity and eloquence, Yavlinsky argues that the deepest cause of the global recession was the erosion of the world economy’s moral dimensions. As a professional economist who has long been a leader of the Russian opposition, he knows how to splice politics and economics. As a politician who has repeatedly declined high office on grounds of principle, he lends the book additional authority. Realeconomik is a work that will, I believe, help to spark a public debate on issues of profound importance for humankind.» — Peter Reddaway, George Washington University

Contents

Preface ix

Introduction

  1. Development in the Global Economy
  2. Capitalism, the Market, and Morality
  3. Shifts in the Global Economy of the 1980s-2010 and Changes in the Moral and Psychological Climate
  4. International Relations, 1980s-2008: Putting SelfInterests First
  5. The Crisis in Russia Is a Different Matter
  6. Lessons from the Crisis in the Globolized World: Morality as the Key to Survival

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

See also:

Central Banks Need to Take Action to Fight Climate Change

Hubert Kempf, Professor of Economics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris - Saclay (France) and Academic Supervisor of HSE International Laboratory for Macroeconomic Analysis (IMLA), will speak about the greening of monetary policy at ameeting of theDiscussion Club on Modern Economic Policy on November 25. In his interview, Professor Kempf spoke about the work of IMLA, the development of macroeconomics, and the role central banks can play in combatting climate change.

A Unique Opportunity for Students from Developing Countries

At the HSE Faculty of Economics  Professor Marek Dabrowski teaches a Master’s course in Macroeconomic Policy in Transition and Emerging Economies. Global trends are changing and everything from consumer goods to life insurance is available online. Should education follow the trend of immediate online access or is there a special path for it? In December 2014 the course in Macroeconomic Policy in Transition and Emerging Economies was launched on Coursera. Could it help students from less developed countries achieve their career goals? HSE online student magazine Read Square has asked Professor Dabrowski to share his ideas.

29

was the number of additional subject areas covered by HSE researchers’ articles that were published in Web of Science journals in 2014.

Moscow’s Exhilarating Energy Sets Mood at April Conference

Ikka Korhonen, Head of the Research Institute for Economics in Transition, Bank of Finland:‘My interests lie in the area of macroeconomics, and there are a lot of papers being presented at the conference that important for my work.'

LCSR Research Fellow’s Article Published in Online International Journal

A new article by Kirill Zhirkov, a Research Fellow with the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, was published recently online in the international peer-reviewed journal Conflict Management and Peace Science.

‘Innovation: Superpowered invention’ by Leonid Gokhberg and Dirk Meissner published in Nature

In the article the scientists compare accounts on the trajectory of innovation in Russia and the USA.

HSE Leads in SSRN Rankings

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) publishes a monthly ranking of research centers and universities in the social and economic sciences. According to the results of the first quarter of 2013, the HSE ranks first for the number of registered authors publishing their papers on the SSRN site. Over the year, their number has more than doubled: from 117 to 272.

‘Foresight-Russia’, issue 1, 2013

The latest issue of the ‘Foresight-Russia’ journal is out.

HSE’s 12 Most Interesting Research Papers of 2012 in English and Russian

Deals on government commissions, the anti-corruption declaration, job creators and job destroyers, trust, talent and institutions, the economy of Runet, the Russian internet; the most curious and useful research for economic policy carried out by HSE over the last year.

‘I Teach a Very Interesting Subject’

Sergey Pekarsky, Professor at the Faculty of Economics Subdepartment of Macroeconomic Analysis, first came to the HSE to get a second higher education, since he did not know where to apply his knowledge of applied mathematics. Fifteen years later, he is about to head the HSE’s Department of Theoretical Economics, and students have voted him one of the best teachers at the HSE.