We use consumption and balance sheet data disaggregated between the top 5% and the bottom 95% of US households by income to show that the bottom 95% went deeply into debt to mitigate the impact of their stagnant incomes on their consumption. We use micro data to calibrate an intrinsic Keynesian...

Rising inequality reduced income growth for the bottom 95 percent of the US personal income distribution beginning about 1980. To maintain stable debt to income, this group's consumption-income ratio needed to decline, which did not happen through 2006, and its debt-income ratio rose...

Rising inequality reduced income growth for the bottom 95 percent of the US personal income distribution beginning about 1980. To maintain stable debt to income, this group’s consumption-income ratio needed to decline, which did not happen through 2006, and its debt- income ratio rose...

Cover -- AFTER THE GREAT RECESSION -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Contributors -- Foreword -- Preface -- PART ONE: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW -- ONE Understanding the Great recession -- 1. The Great Recession: A Brief History -- 2. Mainstream Macroeconomics and the...