Fault Lines: Preventing the Next Financial Earthquake Former IMF Chief Economist and University of Chicago Booth School of Business Professor of Economics Raghuram Rajan investigates the underlying cracks in the post-collapse economy and a call-to-arms for a stronger social safety netAt the 2005 Jackson Hole Conference in Wyoming for top central bankers and hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City—the last conference for the legendary Alan Greenspan - Raghuram Rajan, who was then chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, delivered an alarming speech to the crowd, warning them that they were taking on too much risk. Easy credit, complex investment products, and a lack of confidence in the inter-banking market, Rajan said, would create the formula for an epic financial collapse. He was criticized fiercely for his prediction. Two years later, the financial crisis happened. The Wall Street Journal featured his prescient presentation in a January 2009 article. In Raghuram Rajan’s valuable new book FAULT LINES: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, the former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund (2003-2007) argues that serious flaws in the economy are to blame (not just greedy bankers), and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed. Can we risk not listening to him a second time? Rajan shows how inequality - both domestic and international - led us to the brink of a financial meltdown. He traces the deepening fault lines in a system overly dependent on American consumption to power the world economy and stave off a global downturn; a system where America's thin social safety net has created tremendous political pressure to keep job creation robust, because jobs are the primary provider of health and other benefits; and where the U.S. financial sector, with its skewed incentives, is the critical but unstable link between an over stimulated America and an under consuming world. And he wars us that our responses to the financial crisis so far have done little to correct theses smouldering problems, setting us up for the next financial earthquake. FAULT LINES: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy by Raghuram G. Rajan £18.95 | ISBN: 978-0-691-14683-6, 272 pp. To buy the book now, please click on the following link: Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy  About the Author Raghuram G. Rajan is the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He is the co-author of Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists: Unleashing the Power of Financial Markets to Create Wealth and Spread Opportunity (Princeton). About the University of Chicago Booth School of Business The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is one of the leading business schools in the world, consistently ranking in the top ten and frequently in the top five. The school’s faculty includes many renowned scholars and its graduates occupy key positions in the US and worldwide. The Chicago Approach to Management Education is distinguished by how it leverages fundamental knowledge, its rigor, and its practical application to business challenges. The school offers full- and part-time MBA programmes, a PhD programme, open enrolment executive education and custom corporate education, with campuses in London, Chicago and Singapore. Current enrolment includes 1,100 full-time MBA students, 1,900 part-time MBA students of whom 90 are studying in London, and 110 PhD students. Six current or former faculty members are Nobel Prize winners in economics. Among the school’s many successful alumni are James A. Rasulo, Senior Executive Vice President and CFO of The Walt Disney Company, Bart Becht, CEO, Reckitt Benckiser plc, Brady Dougan, CEO, Credit Suisse and David Booth, founder and co-Chief Executive Officer of Dimensional Fund Advisors, for whom the school was renamed in 2008. www.chicagobooth.edu Post to Social Links 
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