Recessions and depressions : understanding business cycles /

This book is a timely contribution to the ongoing debate about the causes of the current global recession. In this updated, easy-to-read work (1st ed., CH, Mar'05, 42-4152), Knoop (Cornell College) provides an evaluative survey of almost all the theories that economists have put forth during the past 200 years to explain business cycles. One very important theory missing in his work, however, is that of Karl Marx, who blamed the occurrence of deep recessions on the heavy concentration of income and wealth within the capitalist class, causing severe decline in consumer demand. Presenting a detailed history of the most important US and international recessions, including the Great Depression and the global financial crisis of 2007-08, Knoop expertly tries to gauge the power of various theories in explaining a given recession. His general conclusion is that economists have yet to come up with the golden theory that could explain every economic cycle and predict the exact timing of the next one. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, faculty, and professionals. M. Seyedian SUNY Fredonia