California shrugged: fountainhead of the Great Recession

Ashok Bardhan and Richard Walker

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2011, vol. 4, issue 3, 303-322

Abstract: California was the epicentre of the current Great Recession. Due to its economic structure, open economy, political institutions and other factors, it has a starring role in the four-fold US crisis underway--housing, urban, industrial and fiscal. First, California was a disproportionately large player in US mortgage markets and its banks engaged in the worst excesses of the housing bubble. Second, California exhibited disproportionate activity in the housing sector among the 50 states and had the most unaffordable housing, making borrowers susceptible to mortgage overreach. Third, the state is the country's largest subeconomy at the forefront of technological innovation, but it manifests troubling elements of industrial decline. And fourth, its fiscal crisis is among the worst of any state. Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2011
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Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society is currently edited by Judith Clifton, Anna Davies, Betsy Donald, Emil Evenhuis, Stefania Fiorentino (Associate Editor), Harry Garretsen, Meric Gertler, Amy Glasmeier, Mia Gray, Robert Hassink, Dieter Kogler, Michael Kitson, Linda Lobao, Charles van Marrewijk, Ron Martin, Peter Sunley, Peter Tyler and Chun Yang

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