IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ins/quaeco/qf1112.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Global Saving Glut and housing bubble: a critical analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Giancarlo Bertocco

    (Department of Economics, University of Insubria, Italy)

Abstract

This paper examines the explanation of the "subprime" crisis provided by Bernanke according to which the origin of the housing bubble stemmed from the global saving glut that occurred in the decade 1996-2006. The paper has two objectives. First, it highlights the limits of Bernanke's thesis. Second, it shows that a meaningful explanation of the crisis has to be grounded on the "monetary theory of production" proposed by Keynes to explain how a monetary economy works.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Giancarlo Bertocco, 2011. "Global Saving Glut and housing bubble: a critical analysis," Economics and Quantitative Methods qf1112, Department of Economics, University of Insubria.
  • Handle: RePEc:ins:quaeco:qf1112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.eco.uninsubria.it/RePEc/pdf/QF2011_12.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tatom, John, 2007. "Why Have Interest Rates Been So Low?," MPRA Paper 4113, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. John B. Taylor, 2007. "Housing and monetary policy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 463-476.
    3. Paul Mizen, 2008. "The credit crunch of 2007-2008: a discussion of the background, market reactions, and policy responses," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 90(Sep), pages 531-568.
    4. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2014. "This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 15(2), pages 215-268, November.
    5. Bernanke, B.S., 2011. "International capital flows and the returns to safe assets in the United States 2003-2007," Financial Stability Review, Banque de France, issue 15, pages 13-26, February.
    6. Catte, Pietro & Cova, Pietro & Pagano, Patrizio & Visco, Ignazio, 2011. "The role of macroeconomic policies in the global crisis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 787-803.
    7. Giancarlo Bertocco, 2009. "The Economics of Financing Firms : Two Different Approaches," History of Economic Ideas, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 17(1), pages 85-123.
    8. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2009. "The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Default Crisis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1449-1496.
    9. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    10. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2011. "Theoretical Notes on Bubbles and the Current Crisis," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 59(1), pages 6-40, April.
    11. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2009. "The Credit Crisis: Conjectures about Causes and Remedies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 606-610, May.
    12. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1990. "Symposium on Bubbles," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 13-18, Spring.
    13. Ricardo J. Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2008. "An Equilibrium Model of "Global Imbalances" and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 358-393, March.
    14. Bertocco, Giancarlo, 2008. "Finance and development: Is Schumpeter's analysis still relevant?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1161-1175, June.
    15. Giancarlo Bertocco, 2007. "The characteristics of a monetary economy: a Keynes--Schumpeter approach," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 31(1), pages 101-122, January.
    16. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb & Joseph Gyourko, 2012. "Can Cheap Credit Explain the Housing Boom?," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and the Financial Crisis, pages 301-359, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Jorg Bibow, 2010. "Bretton Woods 2 Is Dead, Long Live Bretton Woods 3?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_597, Levy Economics Institute.
    18. Jean-Baptiste Gossé, 2009. "The Real and Financial Implications of the Global Saving Glut: A Three-Country Model," Working Papers hal-00380417, HAL.
    19. David Laibson & Johanna Mollerstrom, 2010. "Capital Flows, Consumption Booms and Asset Bubbles: A Behavioural Alternative to the Savings Glut Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 354-374, May.
    20. Mayer-Foulkes David A, 2010. "Long-Term Fundamentals of the 2008 Economic Crisis," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 1-25, January.
    21. Jörg Bibow, 2010. "Global imbalances, the US dollar, and how the crisis at the core of global finance spread to "self-insuring" emerging market economies," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 7(2), pages 325-359.
    22. Anthony Legg & Nalini Prasad & Tim Robinson, 2007. "Global Imbalances and the Global Saving Glut – A Panel Data Assessment," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2007-11, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    23. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Global imbalances and the financial crisis: products of common causes," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Oct, pages 131-172.
    24. Raghuram G. Rajan, 2010. "Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9111.
    25. Fidora, Michael & Bracke, Thierry, 2008. "Global liquidity glut or global savings glut? A structural VAR approach," Working Paper Series 911, European Central Bank.
    26. Ansgar Belke & Daniel Gros, 2010. "Global Liquidity, World Savings Glut and Global Policy Coordination," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 973, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    27. Claudio Borio & Piti Disyatat, 2011. "Global imbalances and the financial crisis: Link or no link?," BIS Working Papers 346, Bank for International Settlements.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sergio Cesaratto, 2016. "La financiación inicial y final en el circuito monetario y la teoría de la demanda efectiva," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 18(35), pages 47-78, July-Dece.
    2. Sergio Cesaratto, 2017. "Initial and Final Finance in the Monetary Circuit and the Theory of Effective Demand," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(2), pages 228-258, May.
    3. Spahn, Peter, 2019. "Keynesian capital theory: Declining interest rates and persisting profits," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 10-2019, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    4. Marco Passarella, 2013. "Financial Integration in the European Union: an Analysis of ECB’s role," Working papers wpaper04, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    5. George Selgin, 2014. "Operation Twist-the-Truth: How the Federal Reserve Misrepresents Its History and Performance," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 34(2), pages 229-263, Spring/Su.
    6. Bofinger, Peter & Ries, Mathias, 2017. "Excess saving and low interest rates: Theory and empirical evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 12111, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lin, Justin Yifu & Treichel, Volker, 2012. "The unexpected global financial crisis : researching its root cause," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5937, The World Bank.
    2. Claudio Borio & Piti Disyatat, 2011. "Global imbalances and the financial crisis: Link or no link?," BIS Working Papers 346, Bank for International Settlements.
    3. Daisuke Ikeda & Toan Phan & Timothy Sablik, 2020. "Asset Bubbles and Global Imbalances," Richmond Fed Economic Brief, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 20, pages 1-4, January.
    4. Jeroen Hessel & Jolanda Peeters, 2011. "Housing bubbles, the leverage cycle and the role of central banking," DNB Occasional Studies 905, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    5. Bertaut, Carol & DeMarco, Laurie Pounder & Kamin, Steven & Tryon, Ralph, 2012. "ABS inflows to the United States and the global financial crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 219-234.
    6. Eswar S. Prasad, 2011. "Role reversal in global finance," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 339-390.
    7. Roy, Saktinil & Kemme, David M., 2020. "The run-up to the global financial crisis: A longer historical view of financial liberalization, capital inflows, and asset bubbles," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    8. Claudio Borio, 2014. "The international monetary and financial system: its Achilles heel and what to do about it," Globalization Institute Working Papers 203, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    9. Levitin, Adam & Wachter, Susan, 2012. "Explaining the Housing Bubble," MPRA Paper 41920, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Merrouche, Ouarda & Nier, Erlend, 2017. "Capital inflows, monetary policy, and financial imbalances," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 117-142.
    11. Kero, Afroditi, 2013. "Banks’ risk taking, financial innovation and macroeconomic risk," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 112-124.
    12. Graeme O'Meara, 2015. "Housing Bubbles and Monetary Policy: A Reassessment," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 46(4), pages 521-565.
    13. repec:zbw:bofism:2012_047 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Roy, Saktinil, 2022. "What drives the systemic banking crises in advanced economies?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    15. Carol Bertaut & Laurie Pounder DeMarco & Steven B. Kamin & Ralph W. Tryon, 2011. "ABS Inflows to the United States and the Global Financial Crisis," NBER Working Papers 17350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Al-Saffar, Yaser & Ridinger, Wolfgang & Whitaker, Simon, 2015. "Financial Stability Paper No 24: The role of external balance sheets in the financial crisis," Bank of England Financial Stability Papers 24, Bank of England.
    17. Taipalus, Katja, 2012. "Detecting asset price bubbles with time-series methods," Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, number 2012_047.
    18. Taipalus, Katja, 2012. "Detecting asset price bubbles with time-series methods," Bank of Finland Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, volume 0, number sm2012_047, March.
    19. Carlos A. Carrasco & Felipe Serrano, 2014. "Global and European Imbalances:A critical review," Working papers wpaper42, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    20. Stephen Cecchetti & Madhusudan Mohanty & Fabrizio Zampolli, 2011. "The real effects of debt," BIS Working Papers 352, Bank for International Settlements.
    21. Carol C. Bertaut & Steven B. Kamin & Laurie Pounder DeMarco & Ralph W. Tryon, 2011. "ABS inflows to the United States and the global financial crisis," International Finance Discussion Papers 1028, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ins:quaeco:qf1112. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Segreteria Dipartimento (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feinsit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.