"Much of the policy reaction to the Great Recession emphasized Keynesian effects on aggregate demand and downplayed individual incentives to work, produce, and invest. In contrast, Casey Mulligan's research focuses on how an expanded array of U.S. safety-net programs-food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and housing/mortgage assistance programs-raised effective marginal income-tax rates especially for poor families. These diminished incentives to work help to explain the weakness of the U.S. economic recovery since the end of the recession in 2009 and also explain why Barack Obama is justifiably called the 'Food-Stamp President.' Hopefully, future government policymakers will deliver better results by learning from this important book." --Robert J. Barro, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, Harvard University
"Professor Mulligan analyzes the question of why has labor supply remained low and unemployment remained high during the current recession. He finds that the expansion of government safety net programs along with their associated high marginal tax rates, decreases the economic incentives for labor supply. The question at issue is how much of the decrease in labor supply arises from these effects and their associated redistribution of income compared to the decreases in demand in sectors such as construction and manufacturing? He concludes that it is possible that nearly all or at least much of the decline in labor usage can be attributed to expansion of the social safety net. I highly recommend this sure to be controversial analysis of the effects of the Great Recession. Professor Mulligan has provided an innovative analysis of our current economic woes, which should cause most economists to rethink their views of what has gone wrong." --Jerry Hausman, McDonald Professor of Economics, MIT
"Casey Mulligan's The Redistribution Recession presents a heterodox perspective on the Great Recession. The book argues that redistributive and ot
