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We follow a representative panel of millions of consumers in the U.S. from 2007 to 2017 and document several facts on the long-term effects of the Great Recession. There were about six million foreclosures in the ten-year period after Lehman’s collapse. Owners of multiple homes accounted for 25% of these foreclosures, while comprising only 13% of the market. Foreclosures displaced homeowners, with most of them moving at least once. Only a quarter of foreclosed households regained homeownership, taking an average four years to do so. Despite massive stimulus and debt relief policies, recovery was slow and varied dramatically across regions. House prices, consumption and unemployment remain below pre-crisis levels in about half of the zip codes in the U.S. Regions that recovered to pre-crisis levels took on average four to five years from the depths of the Great Recession. Regional variation in the extent and speed of recovery is strongly related to frictions affecting the pass-through of lower interest rates and debt relief to households including mortgage contract rigidity, refinancing constraints, and the organizational capacity of intermediaries to conduct loan renegotiations. A simple counterfactual based on our estimates suggest that, regardless of the narratives of the causes of housing boom and bust, alleviating these frictions could have reduced the relative foreclosure rate by more than half and resulted in up to twice as fast recovery of house prices, consumption, and employment. Our findings have implications for mortgage market design, monetary policy pass-through, and macro-prudential and housing policy interventions. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

The demographic composition of the U.S. professoriate affects student composition and, thus, the pipeline for professional and managerial jobs. Amid concern about the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the labor market, much remains unknown about how economic downturns affect faculty hiring and the demographic makeup of hires. We examine the effects of the Great Recession on faculty hiring. That crisis walloped the U.S. academic labor market. Tenure-track hires in four-year colleges and universities declined by 25 percent between 2007 and 2009, recovering slowly through 2015. Hires of black, Hispanic, and Asian American faculty declined disproportionately. Public institutions and research-oriented institutions, which faced the greatest resource challenges and uncertainty about the future, made the biggest cuts in the hiring of people of color. Our findings suggest that financial uncertainty led to a reversal in progress on faculty diversity. Faculty and administrators making hiring decisions in the years following the COVID-19 crisis should be aware of this pattern.

Objectives To examine depressive symptom trajectories as a function of time and exposure to Hurricane Sandy, accounting for the effects of the Great Recession. Methods We analyzed 6 waves of data from a 12-year panel using latent class growth models and multinomial logistic regression. Results We identified 4 groups of people experiencing different trajectories of depressive symptoms. The groups differed on baseline characteristics (gender, age, education, income, race), history of diagnosed depression, and initial level of depressive symptoms. The group with the highest levels of depressive symptoms reported greater levels of peri-traumatic stress exposure to Hurricane Sandy. Discussion Depressive symptoms increased as a function of the Great Recession, but exposure to Hurricane Sandy was not associated with subsequent increases in depressive symptoms for any of the 4 groups. People who consistently experienced high levels of depressive symptoms over time reported the highest levels of peri-traumatic stress during Hurricane Sandy. Findings highlight the importance of accounting for historical trends when studying the effects of disaster, identify people likely to be at risk during a disaster, and provide novel information about the causal relationship between exposure to disaster and depressive symptoms.

Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es identificar los efectos de la Gran Recesión sobre la salud mental de las personas residentes en España. Tras exponer un marco conceptual sobre los mecanismos por los que las crisis económicas afectan a la salud mental, se describen los principales resultados de 45 trabajos identificados en nuestra búsqueda. Los estudios apuntan a un empeoramiento de la salud mental en España en los años de crisis económica, en especial en los varones. Las condiciones laborales (desempleo, bajos salarios, inestabilidad, precariedad) emergen como uno de los cauces principales a través de los que se pone en riesgo o deteriora la salud mental. Dicho deterioro se produce con intensidad en colectivos particularmente vulnerables, como población inmigrante y familias con cargas económicas. En el caso de los suicidios, no se observan resultados concluyentes. En materia de utilización de servicios sanitarios parece identificarse un aumento en el consumo de ciertos fármacos, si bien las conclusiones de todos los trabajos no son coincidentes. En el caso de las desigualdades sociales en salud mental, estas no parecen haber remitido. Se concluye que es necesario mejorar nuestros sistemas de información para comprender mejor los efectos sobre la salud de las crisis económicas. En materia de políticas públicas, junto con el refuerzo de los servicios sanitarios dirigidos a atender problemas de salud mental, se debería impulsar una red de garantía de rentas para las personas en situación de vulnerabilidad y el desarrollo de políticas dirigidas al medio laboral. Abstract: The objective of this article is to identify the effects of the Great Recession on the mental health of people residing in Spain. After presenting a conceptual framework on the mechanisms through which economic crises affect mental health, we describe the main results of 45 papers identified in our search. Studies indicate a worsening of mental health in Spain in the years of economic crisis, especially in men. Working conditions (unemployment, low wages, instability, precariousness) emerge as one of the main channels through which mental health is put at risk or deteriorates. This deterioration occurs with intensity in particularly vulnerable groups, such as immigrant population and families with economic burdens. In the case of suicides, the results were inconclusive. Regarding the use of health care services, an increase in the consumption of certain drugs seems to be identified, although the conclusions of all the studies are not coincidental. Social inequalities in mental health do not seem to have remitted. We conclude that Spain needs to improve information systems to a better understanding of the health effects of economic crises. In terms of public policies, together with the reinforcement of health services aimed at addressing mental health problems, an income guarantee network for people in vulnerable situations should be promoted, as well as the development of policies aimed at the labour market.

This paper studies the evolution of long-run output and labour productivity growth rates in the G-7 countries during the post-war period. We estimate the growth rates consistent with a constant unemployment rate using time-varying parameter models that incorporate both stochastic volatility and a Heckman-type two-step estimation procedure that deals with the possible endogeneity problem in the econometric models. The results show a significant decline in long-run growth rates that is not associated with the detrimental effects of the Great Recession, and that the rate of growth of labour productivity appears to be behind the slowdown in long-run GDP growth.

Generation Z comprises the newest cohort to enter the workforce, and they not content to be the Millennials’ younger sibling. Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z’s identity is shaped by being the first generation to come into a post-9/11 world, by the effects of the Great Recession on their parents’ and fami-lies’ economic well-being, by the proliferation of technology and social media, by the specter of school shootings and violence, and by the current period of reckoning with past and present racial injustice. The defining moment for this generation, however, is entering adulthood during or in the wake of a global pandemic that significantly changed both education and industry. The confluence of this new generation of career entrants, the dramatically shifting job forms and careers (e.g., contingent work and the gig economy), and the post-COVID landscape of work provides a rich and compelling research agenda for management and human resource management as Gen Z enters workplace and progresses through their careers. Little academic research has examined this generation and its complexity, but the business community is very interested in preparing for the influx of Gen Z into their organizations and as consumers. Gen Z is diverse, global, and mobile. They are defined by their almost symbiotic relationship with technology, but surprisingly desire in-person connection. This generation was hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, in their education, finances, relationships, and well-being. They are a generation in flux. Future research directions are explored and presented. © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers across the whole wage distribution, not just at the mean, and the evolution before and after the Great Recession on this gap in Spain.Design/methodology/approachAn extended Mincer-type wage equation is estimated using ordinary least square regression and unconditional quantile regression. Then, the decomposition of the wage gap between workers with fixed-term and permanent contracts for each quantile is made using the Fortin, Lemieux and Firpo decomposition.FindingsThe results show that two workers, with identical characteristics, earn different salaries if they have a different type of contract. However, the wage gap is not constant across the wage distribution. The penalty for temporary workers is wider for higher wages. Moreover, the main part of the gap is due to observed characteristics, but other factors (unobserved characteristics and discrimination) become more relevant in the upper part of the wage distribution.Originality/valueThe study expands upon available studies for Spain in two points. First, it is the first paper to the knowledge that analyse both the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers across the wage distribution and its decomposition. Second, the paper explores what happened before and after the Great Recession. In the years that the paper analyses there is also a labour market reform.

This paper examines the effects of the Great Recession on the gender difference in hourly wage and the rate of return to schooling in the United States. Using data from American Community Survey 2000–2015, we find that the male-female difference in hourly wage declined during and after the recession. The Great Recession decreased earnings for both men and women, especially for those with more education. We also find there is a significant gender difference in the effects of the Great Recession on the returns to schooling. The Great Recession increased the rate of return to schooling for both men and women, and the female-male difference in the returns to schooling decreased by 0.4 percentage points in the post-recession period. The change of the gender difference in the returns to schooling can be explained by the wage structure change for men and women over the recession.

Purpose The Mexican housing industry was hindered by a shrinking market and tighter financial conditions related to the Great Recession. Moreover, in 2013, a major change in public policy further modified this industry’s environment. Mexico’s new urban development policy supported inner-city new housing, in contrast to the previous policy that incentivized sprawling. Three out of eight publicly traded housing companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 2013-2014, arguably because of the effects of the Great Recession and the new housing policy. The purpose of this study is to identify firm-level factors that caused some firms to file for bankruptcy protection. Design/methodology/approach Three approaches were used to analyze the housing industry in Mexico from 2006 to 2015. First, a policy analysis focused on the new housing policy and its consequences for housebuilding companies. Second, a financial analysis of the two economic shocks was performed in search for the transmission mechanisms in the companies’ financial metrics. Third, a retrospective analysis using the Fisher’s exact test was used to identify variables statistically associated with companies filing for bankruptcy protection. Findings There are two features significantly associated with bankruptcy protection: increasing market share while being vertically integrated, as a response to the Great Recession, and the relative magnitude of the loss on firms’ inventory value due to the new public policy. Neither Altman’s Z-score values nor firm size or degree of integration are significantly related to bankruptcy. Research limitations/implications The small sample size presented a challenge, as most statistical methodologies require large samples; however, this was overcome by using the Fisher’s exact test. Originality/value The main contribution of this paper is the statistical identification of the possible causes for bankruptcy protection in Mexico amongst homebuilding firms in 2013 and 2014, which have not previously been reported in the literature.

Background This study was undertaken to quantify how the Great Recession impacted the demand for general oral health care and orthodontic care in the United States. The authors conducted an analysis to help dentists anticipate changes in demand for care during future economic downturns. Methods The authors analyzed Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data for the period 2003 through 2015. Data plotting for the various factors considered showed patient demand before, during, and after the Great Recession, including an indication of postrecession recovery. Statistical significance across time was determined using a χ2 test. The point estimates and statistical inferences took into account the complex survey design of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Results General dentist visits declined slowly and steadily during the Great Recession, reaching a low of 38.4% in 2010, and have not shown significant signs of recovery. Orthodontic visits also declined to an all-time low of 2.5% in 2010, although they have somewhat recovered. Out-of-pocket expenditures were lower in 2015 than in 2003 for general dental and orthodontic care. Conclusion The effects of the Great Recession resulted in a decrease in the demand for oral health care, differing for general oral health care and orthodontic care. Practical Implications These findings, especially in combination with leading indicators for economic downturns, will allow dentists to better plan and use strategies for maintaining practice stability during periods of reduced demand for care.

The subprime mortgage crisis that began in the United States eventually unraveled as the worst global economic crisis – the Great Recession – since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The literature has described several factors to explain the causes of the Great Recession, most prominent being the pace of financial deregulations and excessive financial innovations that catalyzed an unnatural boom that ended in a crisis (Crotty and Epstein, 2009). Countries hit the hardest in terms of an upsurge in unemployment rates over 2008–10 include Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, and Latvia. A comparison of harmonized unemployment rates for these countries shows that Estonia posted the highest increase in the unemployment rate, which rose from 5.5 percent in 2008 to 16.7 percent in 2010, an increase of 203 percentage points. Other countries worst hit by the crisis were Iceland (153 percent), Latvia (151 percent) and Ireland (117 percent) (OECD, 2018a). To this end, an important but understated issue worthy of discussion concerns the gender impacts of the Great Recession. Crisis theories that have described its distributional dynamics do not converge to a united whole and predict differential impacts of crises for men and women. One theory posits that since women are used as employment buffers – called in when demand increases but pushed back when demand shrinks – women’s unemployment rates may rise more than that of men’s during recessionary phases. Thus, women might experience a greater loss in employment, earned income, and overall wealth during recessions (Humphries, 1988 [2010]). However, an argument running counter to this theory is that women’s concentration in female-dominated occupations – which tend to be cyclically robust – may shield women’s employment relative to that of men’s. Since there is no definitive theoretical model of these relations, the issue of the gender impacts of recessions becomes an empirical question. In this respect, men’s and women’s labor market experiences from the Great Recession can be treated as a litmus test. Similar to previous two recessions in the US, men’s unemployment rates rose faster than women’s during the Great Recession. Due to this phenomenon, these recessions have come to be known as “man-cessions” (Wall, 2009). However, I argue in this chapter that this observation can be misleading on many accounts. I argue that although men and women showed substantial differences in their vulnerabilities to the recession, within-gender differences were much more pronounced. Additionally, gender impacts of crises derive from differences in men’s and women’s unique, socially and culturally drawn positions, job structures, family models and welfare systems.

This paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to estimate a structural model of household retirement and saving. It applies that model to analyze the effects of the Great Recession on the work and retirement of older couples who were both employed full-time at the beginning of the recession. We analyze the effects of job loss, changes in wealth and changes in expectations. The largest overall effects of the Great Recession are observed for 2009 and 2010. In 2009, an additional 2.5 percent of all 55 to 59 year old husbands were not working full-time as result of the Great Recession, amounting to a reduction of 3.2 percent in full-time work. In 2010, 2.8 percent of 55 to 59 year old husbands were not working full-time as a result of the Great Recession, amounting to a 3.8 percent reduction in full-time work. For wives the reductions in full-time work due to the Great Recession were 1.7 percent and 2.2 percent of those who initially held a job, or reductions of full-time work of 2.3 and 3.0 percent respectively. For those 60 to 64, the reductions were 1.2 percent of men and 0.9 percent of women. Having been laid off in the last three years reduces full-time work by 30 percent. There also are lingering effects of layoff on the probability of working longer. Having been laid off three or more years in the past reduces full-time employment in the current year by about 12 percent. This reflects the reduced work incentives for full-time work arising from lower earnings due to the loss of job tenure with a layoff as well as the additional earnings penalty from a layoff. The effect on own work of a spouse having been laid off is much smaller. The reason is that, as found in the estimation of our structural model, having one spouse not working increases the value of leisure for the other. In contrast, when one member of the household loses their job, the value of consumption increases relative to leisure. For recent layoffs, these effects are roughly offsetting. All told, the effects of the Great Recession on retirement seem relatively modest. These findings are consistent with our earlier descriptive analyses.

This study examined the effects of the Great Recession (GR) on type 2 diabetes management using individual-level data in a historically underserved, high-risk patient population at a federally qualified health center (FQHC). Comparing three time periods (pre-recession [2004-2006], recession [2007-2009], and recession recovery [2010-2012]), we found that patients had significant increases in blood pressure and body mass index as they entered the GR. Conversely, we found a significant decrease in HbA1c across the study period likely influenced by interventions to improve HbA1c during this time at this FQHC. While previous studies on the impact of the GR have focused primarily on the middle class, our findings suggest that high-risk patients who are already struggling to maintain their health may be further hurt by economic downturns. Intensive programs to serve these patients can act as a safety net to buffer the potential health impacts of these downturns.

This study examines the medium-term effects of the Great Recession on school finances in New Jersey using detailed school district panel data and an interrupted time series analysis. The authors find that the recession led to sharp cuts in school funding and expenditure, in spite of the federal stimulus. These cuts deepened as the stimulus abated. An analysis of variations by metropolitan area reveals that the Camden metro area, the highest poverty area reviewed, experienced considerably larger cuts in expenditures when the stimulus receded compared with other areas. The findings are important for understanding how recessions and fiscal policy affect school finances. They show particular relevance for the current pandemic-driven recession as state and local funding shortages threaten education financing despite a federal relief package. Two key implications are that funding cuts can widen inequalities in school spending and that adverse effects may deepen as the relief dissipates.

This article aims to elucidate the effects of the Great Recession and the retrenchment of welfare on national identity in several European countries. While different authors have observed that good economic performance, redistribution, and the growth of welfare strengthen countries as political communities of solidarity, there is much less empirical evidence regarding the consequences of an economic crisis for national identity. To investigate these consequences, we focus on a set of countries where the 2008 Great Recession resulted in different impacts, namely, Germany and four countries in Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece). We use secondary quantitative data from Eurobarometer surveys to test aggregated and individual hypotheses relating to both the size and direction of the Great Recession’s effects on national identity. Our results suggest that the roles and impacts of economic variables may be different depending on the relative economic performance of a country within its own context. It seems easier to confirm that good economic performance, in relative terms, might strengthen national identity than proving that poor economic performance will weaken national identity. Even if no definitive empirical evidence can be given at this point, our data suggest a rationalization or compensation mechanism such that citizens look for where to anchor their strong national identities after they have decided on them. If an economy is performing well, then it would become a good anchorage for holding a strong national identity, however, if an economy is not performing well, then economic factors will cease to be a fundamental element for national identity holders.

The profound effects of the Great Recession sparked not only research in terms of the definition and characterization of resilience to economic shocks, but also policy-making discussions ab...

Because employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) is experience rated, employers have an incentive to try to offset its cost by paying lower wages to employees who have greater medical expenditures. The existing evidence on this topic, however, illustrates only that ESI is associated with lower wages for groups of workers who are costlier to cover. In contrast, I use the variation provided by the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate to examine if differences in medical expenditures are passed on to workers at the individual level. My estimates rely on Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data in a dose response difference-in-difference framework that examines how wages change for workers with varying medical expenditures when they must soon be offered ESI. I find that each $1 difference in medical expenditures is associated with a $0.35 to $0.51 wage offset after the employer mandate's announcement wherever ESI must soon be offered to workers. Placebo analyses, focusing on workers whose employers are not affected by the mandate, provide support for a causal interpretation. I also show that my findings are not sensitive to sample selection or data reliability issues and that they cannot be explained by the effects of the Great Recession, demographic characteristics that correlate with medical expenditures, or location- or industry-specific idiosyncratic shocks.

Using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing over the period 2004-2017, this paper explores the effects of the Great Recession and its aftermath upon health-compromising behaviours in adults aged 50 and over. We introduce new techniques into this area of research, namely dynamic random-effects logit estimators which control for initial conditions and correlated individual effects. We observe a lack of crisis effect upon the probabilities of smoking and being physically inactive, as well as of transitioning in and out of these behaviours. In line with other recent literature, this suggests that the relationship between economic recessions and smoking and physical inactivity may have broken down. Alternatively, the over 50s may have been protected from the crisis and subsequent austerity measures. Nonetheless, both the crisis and post-crisis period were associated with a lower probability of drinking frequently.

Background Several studies have suggested that record high unemployment during the Great Recession was associated with deleterious changes in diet and weight-related health. However, studies have yet to explore whether the Great Recession was also associated with obesity-related health in utero. Methods We investigated whether increasing county-level unemployment was associated with large-for-gestational age (LGA) births, using repeated cross-sectional data from California birth records between 2008 and 2011 (n = 1,715,052). LGA was defined as >90th percentile, using the Oken reference. We use the annual 1-year lagged value for county-level unemployment (2007-2010) and limit our analyses to singleton, term births. Linear probability models, with county and year fixed-effects were used to examine the unemployment-LGA association. All models control for county-level foreclosure rates, child gender, and maternal age, parity, education, and race/ethnicity. Results An increase in county-level unemployment was not statistically significantly associated with the prevalence of LGA (percentage point [PP]: 0.12; 95% CI: -0.02, 0.25). But, over the period of observation, for every one standard deviation increase in unemployment, LGA prevalence increased by 5% and p = 0.08. Conclusions These results cautiously suggest some deleterious effects of the Great Recession on obesity-related health in utero.

We estimate the degree of stickiness in aggregate consumption growth for the U.S. considering the effects of the Great Recession. The behavior of stickiness estimate in the crisis is somewhat as th...

This paper analyzes the effects of the Great Recession on different generations. While older generations suffered the largest decline in wealth due to the collapse in asset prices, younger generations suffered the largest decline in labor income. Potentially, the young may benefit from the purchase of cheaper assets, especially if they have access to credit. To analyze the impact of these channels, I construct an overlapping-generations model with borrowing constraints in which households choose a portfolio of risky and risk-free assets. Shocks to labor income and uncertainty regarding the return on risky assets generate a recession with a drop in asset prices and cross-sectional changes in risky investment consistent with the recent Recession. Overall, the young suffer the largest welfare losses, equivalent to a 7 percent reduction in lifetime consumption.

Spain is generally regarded as one of the European countries most affected by the Great Recession starting in 2008 and subsequent restrictive policies. In the first part of this paper we attempt to understand the impacts of the crisis on the welfare state that have led to health inequalities, with a special emphasis on the history of the Spanish National Health System from mid-twentieth century onwards. We also examine citizens’ responses to austerity measures within the health system, highlighting the role of the “white tides” movement. In the second part of the paper, we provide a selective review of the main findings on the effects of the Great Recession in the country, focusing particularly on its outcomes on mental health and on inequalities in health and healthcare use. We conclude that key policies need to be directed towards “the causes of the causes” of health inequalities, a complicated challenge in the current phase of capitalism. A Espanha é geralmente vista como um dos países europeus mais afetados pela Grande Recessão e as subsequentes políticas restritivas. Neste artigo, tentamos, em primeiro lugar, compreender os impactos da crise no Estado-Providência, que levaram a desigualdades na área da saúde, centrando-nos sobretudo na história do Sistema de Saúde Nacional espanhol desde meados do século passado. Também analisamos as reações dos cidadãos às medidas de austeridade no sistema de saúde, salientando o papel do movimento das “marés brancas”. Num segundo momento, apresentamos uma análise seletiva dos principais dados sobre os efeitos da Grande Recessão no país, centrando-nos em especial nos resultados sobre a saúde mental e nas desigualdades na saúde e na utilização do sistema de saúde. Concluímos que as principais políticas têm de ser direcionadas para “as causas das causas” da desigualdade na saúde, o que é um desafio complicado na fase atual do capitalismo.

Much of the previous research that has examined the effect of job loss on the probability of divorce either rely on data from the 1970s–80s, data from European countries, or focus on aggregate divorce rates. This study uses U.S. micro‐data from 2000 to 2012 (thus including effects of the Great Recession) to examine how displacement (i.e., exogenous job loss) affects the probability of divorce. The author finds displacement significantly increases the probability of divorce but only if the husband is the spouse that is displaced, and his earnings represented approximately half or less of the household's earnings prior to displacement. Similarly, results show that the probability of divorce increases if the wife is employed and as her earnings increase. While the mechanism behind these asymmetric results remains unclear, these results are consistent with recent research that finds a destabilizing effect on marriages when a wife earns more than her husband.

The Great Recession had the most severe impacts on the unemployment rates of the racial and ethnic minorities as well as less-educated young men. There were cross-sectional variations of these disproportionate adverse impacts. This study exploits the changes in regional variations of the unemployment rates of unskilled men before and after the Great Recession to explain the sharp fall in aggregate crime rates in the post-recession recovery period. Our 2SLS approach uses plausible exogenous sources of changes in the state employment growth of minimum wage workers induced by the national employment growth of minimum wage workers. We find that changes in regional variations of the unemployment rates of unskilled young men can explain approximately 25% of the fall in the aggregate crime rate in the post-recession expansionary period. Estimating the heterogeneous impacts of unskilled young men by race, we find that the fall in aggregate crime rate was mainly driven by the changes in the unemployment rates of young black men.

In this article we study changes in children’s deprivation and economic vulnerability between 2009 and 2014 using Icelandic EU-SILC data. The timeframe allows us to draw conclusions about the effects of the Great Recession on children’s well-being in Iceland. Children’s deprivation is operationalised using UNICEF’s EU-MODA approach and an indicator of economic vulnerability is derived from equivalent disposable incomes, material deprivation and the ability to make ends meet, using Latent Class Analysis. Our findings point to problems using the child specific indicators provided in the 2009 and 2014 ad-hoc modules of the EU-SILC to study differences within affluent countries. Our analyses of economic vulnerability indicate that children were sheltered less from the Great Recession than the general population and certain vulnerable groups. Furthermore, children from single parent households and children living in households receiving disability benefits were more affected by the recession than children from other types of households. Lastly, our findings suggests that conditions in the Icelandic housing market, specifically the rising housing cost burden, was the main driver of changes in economic vulnerability of children between 2009 and 2014, mediating almost 50% of the increase in children’s economic vulnerability between these two points in time.

This paper performs a comparative investigation of the effects of the Great Recession on the labour market structure and wage inequality in certain countries in Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain). By exploring the intensity of the decline of middle-skill jobs during the years 2005–2013, which makes it possible to sketch what the labour market structure has set for itself (i.e., job polarisation, upgrading or neither), the objective is to relate these changes to wage inequality and its leading determinants. Through the Recentered Influence Function regression of the Gini index on EU-SILC data, Italy is compared to each selected country in order to evaluate how much of the spatial inequality gap is accounted for by the endowment in employee characteristics (composition effect) rather than the capability of each country’s labour market to reward these characteristics (wage structure) and, second, to identify those factors that are quantitatively more significant in making differentials. In brief, Italy is less unequal than the other Southern European countries. A larger amount of its “inequality advantage” depends on the wage structure. That is, the capacity of the country’s labour market in rewarding individual endowments is more important than the ways in which they are distributed across space.

Residential stability matters to a young person’s educational success, and the housing crisis spurred by the Great Recession (2007-2009) has disrupted the residential stability of many families. Using data from a large high school district in San Bernardino County, California, as a case study, this study utilizes a multilevel model to examine the extent to which the housing crisis affected student mobility rates in an area considered an epicenter of the recession. Results show that race was a much stronger predictor of student mobility than socioeconomic status during the crisis. In 2008, mobility rates were especially high for Black students, controlling for a variety of background characteristics. Research and policies that could be helpful in reducing mobility are discussed.

We know little about the relationship between the macroeconomy and birth outcomes, in part due to the methodological challenge of distinguishing effects of economic conditions on fetal health from effects of economic conditions on selection into live birth. We examined associations between state-level unemployment rates in the first 2 trimesters of pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes, using natality data on singleton live births in the United States during 1990-2013. We used fixed-effect logistic regression models and accounted for selection by adjusting for state-level unemployment before conception and maternal characteristics associated with both selection and birth outcomes. We also tested whether associations between macroeconomic conditions and birth outcomes differed during and after (compared with before) the Great Recession (2007-2009). Each 1-percentage-point increase in the first-trimester unemployment rate was associated with a 5% increase in odds of preterm birth, while second-trimester unemployment was associated with a 3% decrease in preterm birth odds. During the Great Recession, however, first-trimester unemployment was associated with a 16% increase in odds of preterm birth. These findings increase our understanding of the effects of the Great Recession on health and add to growing literature suggesting that macro-level social and economic factors contribute to perinatal health.

Economic crises are a recurrent phenomenon in American society, yet there is little knowledge of the impacts on educational opportunity. Using data from a large high school district as a case study, this research explores the impact of the Great Recession (2007–2009) on high school senior graduation rates in an area at the epicenter of the Recession. A logistic regression model with cluster robust standard errors is developed to estimate the recession’s impact on student subgroups’ graduation rates between the periods 2004–2013 for maximum variation. Results show that students who are historically “at-risk” experienced significant declines in graduation rates at the beginning of the recession in 2008. The decline is followed by a steep increase in graduation rates beginning in 2009, largely driven by increases for the most disadvantaged groups. These results suggest that the recession created a counter-cyclical demand for education.

Did the American public become more protectionist during the Great Recession of 2007–09? If so, why? During this period, many observers expressed concern that rising unemployment would stimulate protectionist pressures. The results of this study indicate that although increased unemployment did not affect the trade preferences of most Americans, individuals working in import-competing industries who lost their jobs during the Great Recession did grow more hostile to trade. However, even greater hostility to trade stemmed from a variety of non-material factors. Increasing ethnocentrism and opposition to involvement in world affairs between 2007 and 2009 help account for growing antipathy toward trade. But most importantly, increasing anxiety that foreign commerce would harm people in the future, even if it had not done so thus far, contributed to mounting opposition to trade among the American public.

This study explored the effects of the Great Recession on U.S. workers who remain employed. The first goal was to assess net population change in job and employment insecurity, physical and mental health, and affective organizational commitment. The second goal was to explore job and employment insecurity as parallel mediators of the associations between the Great Recession and the health and affective organizational commitment outcomes. Data came from two national surveys of U.S. workers that occurred before the recession ( N = 2354) and during the recession ( N = 2322). The results show that the recession was associated with a net increase in both job and employment insecurity, though the increase in employment insecurity was 3.4 times larger than the increase in job insecurity. The recession was associated with a net decrease in physical and mental health and affective organizational commitment. Finally, job and employment insecurity partially mediated the association of the recession with physical health and fully mediated its association with mental health. Job insecurity, but not employment insecurity, partially mediated the association of the recession with affective organizational commitment. The results underscore the importance of research that furthers our understanding of how macroeconomic events affect those who remain employed, and that takes a broad view of employee insecurity regarding continuity of employment.

Our main objective was to evaluate the fundamental biases detected in studies assessing the effects the Great Recession had on health for the case of Spain. As secondary objectives we presented methods to control these biases and to discuss the results of the studies in question if they had controlled for them. Methods: We carried out a systematic review of the literature published up to June 2018. We evaluated the biases that could have happened in all the eligible studies. Results: From the review, we finally selected 53 studies. Of the studies we reviewed, 60.38% or 32 out of 53, were evaluated as having a high risk of bias. The main biases our review revealed were problems with evaluation, time bias, lack of control of unobserved confounding, and non-exogeneity when defining the onset of the Great Recession. Conclusions: The results from the studies that controlled the biases were quite consistent. Summing up, the studies reviewed found that the Great Recession increased the risk of declaring poor self-rated health and the deterioration of mental health. Both the mortality rate and the suicide rate may well have increased after the Great Recession, probably after a three- to four-year delay This work was partly supported by the CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP) through the strategic subprogram ‘Crisis and Health’ and by the University of Girona through the programs MPCUdG2016/69 and GDRCompetUdG2017

Community banks are the central financial institution in many places. They have a unique capacity to alleviate firm credit constraints through economic downturns. This may increase economic resilience, delaying or mitigating the effects of the Great Recession. We estimate how the county-level banking access and community bank market share affect both the timing and duration of the Great Recession. Using the Cox Proportional Hazards Model, we find that communities with a higher community bank market share are either less likely to experience recession conditions, or experience these conditions later. Using the Heckman Selection model, we confirm these results, and show that communities with a higher community bank market share are less likely to experience recession conditions. Importantly, we show that these results are independent of the health of local banks, as we control for the mean tier one capital ratio in our analyses. This research provides one of the first links between local financial institutions, and economic resilience.

While housing equity accounts for a large portion of many retiree’s savings portfolios, they are not using their equity to increase consumption in retirement as suggested by the Life-Cycle Hypothesis. Defined benefit plans provide a guaranteed source of income in retirement where the household bears no risk, whereas households with a defined contribution plan are subject to potential risk depending on their asset allocation. This paper examines whether having a defined benefit plan mitigated some of the effects of the Great Recession. Using a difference-in-difference analysis, I examine the impact of the Great Recession on homeownership between households with a defined benefit plan compared to those with a defined contribution plan. I find that households with a defined contribution plan were 2.1-2.9 percent less likely to own a home after the Great Recession compared to households with a defined contribution plan. It is possible that households with defined contribution plans were willing to forgo homeownership to offset some of the losses experienced from the Great Recession. Future retirees face a potentially riskier housing market and are less likely to have a defined benefit plan. As a result, future retirees may be more willing to use their housing equity to increase consumption in retirement than was observed in past generations.

This paper examines the economic effects of changes in technology on gaming revenue in Nevada between 1984 and 2015. Slots outperformed table games in terms or revenue growth during that time-period. The paper provides evidence that those performance gains are attributable both to increased capacity and increased efficiency. Gains attributable to increased capacity, measured by units-in-service, are indicative of successful industry efforts to tap new market segments. Gains attributable to increased efficiency, measured by revenue-per-unit, are indicative of successful industry efforts to expedite gaming productivity. Additional analysis shows that most of the growth in slot revenue occurred prior to 2002, and was primarily attributable to increased capacity. Between 2002 and 2007, revenue growth was more modest, with most of the gains attributed to improved efficiency. Finally, beginning in 2008, slots began to reflect the effects of the Great Recession, surrendering a significant portion of their revenue gains, with decreases in both capacity and efficiency. These results should be of interest to policy makers and others interested in the determinants of gaming revenue.

We demonstrate widening socioeconomic disparities in perceived economic distress among Americans, characterized by increasing distress at the bottom and improved perceptions at the top of the socioeconomic ladder. We then assess the extent to which hardships related to the Great Recession account for the growing social disparity in economic distress. Based on the concept of loss aversion, we also test whether the psychological pain associated with a financial loss is greater than the perceived benefit of an equivalent gain. Analyses are based on longitudinal survey data from the Midlife Development in the US study. Results suggest that widening social disparities in perceived economic distress between the mid-2000s and mid-2010s are explained in part by differential exposure to hardships related to the Great Recession, the effects of which have lingered even four to five years after the recession officially ended. Yet, auxiliary analyses show that the socioeconomic disparities in economic distress widened by nearly as much (if not more) during the period from 1995-96 to 2004-05 as they did during the period in which the recession occurred, which suggests that the factors driving these trends may have already been in motion prior to the recession. Consistent with the loss aversion hypothesis, perceptions of financial strain appear to be somewhat more strongly affected by losses in income/assets than by gains, but the magnitude of the differentials are small and the results are not robust. Our findings paint a dismal portrait of a growing socioeconomic divide in economic distress throughout the period from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s, although we cannot say whether these trends afflict all regions of the US equally. Spatial analysis of aggregate-level mortality and objective economic indicators could provide indirect evidence, but ultimately economic "despair" must be measured subjectively by asking people how they perceive their financial situations.

Objectives This review summarises the existing evidence on the effects of the Great Recession on mental health, substance use and violence in families with children and discusses the policy and service-system implications of this evidence. Methods Peer-reviewed articles published in English between January 2010 and August 2020 were identified through a systematic search of the main scientific databases, citation records, and manual searches of individual journal sites. Studies focusing on children, or their parents, that included an exposure variable measuring the Great Recession and had an outcome related to mental health, substance use or violence were included. A risk of bias assessment and narrative synthesis were provided. Results In total 40 studies were analysed. Most of the studies were deemed to have a moderate risk of bias (29), nine had a high risk of bias and two had a low risk of bias. High-quality studies provided evidence that the economic recession of 2008 (termed ‘the Great Recession’ in this paper) did hurt children’s mental wellbeing. The evidence regarding substance use in families with children was scarce but there were some indications that the recession increased drug and alcohol use among economically vulnerable subgroups. Studies with individual level data from the US showed that the Great Recession increased the risk of child maltreatment, but little evidence of this was found in several ecological and population level time-trend analyses. Implications Counter-cyclical investments in and further integration of social, education and health services targeted not only at adults but also at families with children are crucial in alleviating human suffering in economic recessions. Subsequent research with the combination of high-quality individual and aggregated level data is warranted to assess the potential effects of recessions on substance use and violence in families with children. During the unprecedented economic changes following the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial to monitor timely mental health, substance use and violence in families at risk.

In this paper, we comprehensively examine the effects of the Great Recession on child poverty, with particular attention to the role of the social safety net in mitigating the adverse effects of shocks to earnings and income. Using a state panel data model and data for 2000 to 2014, we estimate the relationship between the business cycle and child poverty, and we examine how and to what extent the safety net is providing protection to at-risk children. We find compelling evidence that the safety net provides protection; that is, the cyclicality of after-tax-and-transfer child poverty is significantly attenuated relative to the cyclicality of private income poverty. We also find that the protective effect of the safety net is not similar across demographic groups, and that children from more disadvantaged backgrounds, such as those living with Hispanic or single heads, or particularly those living with immigrant household heads—or immigrant spouses—experience larger poverty cyclicality than those living with non- Hispanic white or married heads, or those living with native household heads with native spouses. Our findings hold across a host of choices for how to define poverty. These include measures based on absolute thresholds or more relative thresholds. They also hold for measures of resources that include not only cash and near-cash transfers net of taxes but also several measures of the value of public medical benefits.

We review the main distributional effects of the Great Recession and the ways in which those effects have been organized into narratives. The Great Recession may affect poverty, inequality, and other economic and noneconomic outcomes by changing individual-level behavior, encouraging the rise of new social movements or reviving older ones, motivating new economic policy and associated institutional change, or affecting the ideologies and frames through which labor markets and the key forces for economic change are viewed. The amount of sociological research within each of these areas is relatively small (compared with the amount contributed by other disciplines) and has focused disproportionately on monitoring trends or uncovering the causal effects of the Great Recession on individual-level behavior. We review this existing research and point to opportunities for sociologists to better understand how the Great Recession may be changing the economy as well as our narratives about its problems and dysfunctions.

We analyse the effects of the Great Recession (GR) on the profitability of firms located in the main cities versus in the rest of Finland. Based on earlier literature, various regional factors could affect firms' profitability in urban areas in comparison to periphery during a major export demand shock, such as what the GR was in Finland. Yet, there are both negative and positive location specific factors in play. We use micro-data from 2005 to 2010, and employ different profitability indicators and fixed effects panel regressions. Our results indicate that firm and sector level factors affected the profitability changes the most. Regional differences seem to stem mainly from a composition of firm and sector level factors.

Published online: 14 Apr 2016 The political effects of the Great Recession on southern Europe were substantial. The rapid economic deterioration of Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain from 2008 onwards was accompanied by an increase in citizens' dissatisfaction towards national political institutions. The sources of political mistrust in the southern periphery were of a political and economic nature. Using quantitative data from EU member states from 2000 to 2015, this paper evaluates the suitability of competing theories in explaining this shift in political attitudes in southern European countries. It first hypothesizes that political mistrust is explained by citizens' rationalist evaluations of changing macroeconomic performance. It also hypothesizes that political mistrust changes according to institutional performance. The paper argues that economic crises act as an external shock that places politics, politicians and institutions in the spotlight as a result of citizens' deteriorating performance of the economy. The findings suggest that unemployment, public debt and political corruption are key variables in understanding short-term changes in political mistrust.

Using data for U.S. counties from 2005 to 2012, we test whether higher levels of economic diversity mediated the effects of the Great Recession via four measures of stability. Spatial spillover effects are modeled by the use of the spatial Durbin estimator with heteroscedastic errors. The data generally support the central hypothesis that higher levels of diversity within a county are associated with enhanced employment stability across all counties as well as subsets of metro and nonmetro counties. Results for wage stability, however, appear to contradict our other findings. We suggest that underlying labor elasticities can bridge these apparent contradictory results. (JEL R11, R12, O47)

Objective We examine how low-income households have drawn upon public and charitable nonprofit sources of social assistance during and after the Great Recession. Methods Using panel survey data collected in the Detroit Metropolitan Area in 2008 and 2010, we explore the relationships between household characteristics, program use, and bundling of assistance. Results Roughly two-thirds of Detroit households within 300 percent of poverty received a public safety net benefit in the previous year; about 40 percent received assistance from more than one public program. More than one in six households received help from a nonprofit charity. Low educational attainment, unemployment, and health limitations are positively related to receipt of multiple public assistance programs. Conclusions Our findings point to persistent needs among poor and near-poor households after the Great Recession, as well as to the reality that many low-income households draw upon multiple sources of public assistance even when working. Many low-income households remain detached from public and charitable sources of support even as the safety net has expanded in response to the downturn.

How did the Great Recession affect the college degree fields? Utilizing the geographic variation in the severity of the recession in the US, I answer this question using the differences-in-differences and synthetic controls approaches. To explore these effects systematically, I categorize fields based on their sensitivity to the recession. The results show that there was a shift from recession-sensitive majors towards recession-resistant majors. The effects were immediate and larger for more local institutions. These findings suggest that students’ expectations about future labor market outcomes are affected by shocks to the current local labor market conditions.

Objectives Prior studies of the health effects of recessions have shown mixed results. Ecological studies often report a positive relationship between economic downturns and population health while individual-level studies often show that conditions related to recessions are deleterious. Our study examines the spatially and temporally heterogenous effects of the Great Recession (TGR) on adverse birth outcomes, a contemporaneous measure of population health that is highly responsive to changing social conditions. Methods We use restricted birth cohort data from California (2004–2012) merged with both county- and tract-level socio-demographic data, to explore birth selectivity and temporal and unemployment effects during TGR on adverse birth outcomes. Results We find that gestational exposure – more specifically, second trimester exposure – during or adjacent to the months of TGR was generally deleterious for birth outcomes, more so, in some cases, for mothers with lower levels of education, and that increases in county-level unemployment were generally deleterious for birth outcomes. Conclusions Although recessionary effects on population health are problematic and may have far-reaching effects, it appears that these effects may be largely universal, even given potential selective fertility favoring advantaged groups., Highlights • We use restricted data from California to determine the effects of The Great Recession on adverse birth outcomes. • We find that increases in unemployment are generally harmful to birth outcomes. • We also find these effects to be largely universal and not differential in disparity populations.

The effects of the Great Recession on housing equity and homeownership have been well-documented. However, we know little about how rental households fared and the efficacy of housing subsidies in addressing affordability gaps. This paper examines the extent to which rental housing became less affordable for Extremely Low-Income (ELI) households – those earning less than 30% of the Area Median Income (AMI). I then run regression models to determine the local characteristics most strongly associated with larger affordability gaps, with a focus on whether housing subsidies are effective at combating such gaps. Rental affordability gaps became more pronounced during the Great Recession. In nearly 70% of the counties in my sample, there was an increase from 2007 to 2010 in the number of ELI households per affordable rental unit. Across the country, the increase was 17%, a dramatic increase in only three years. There is considerable variation across the country, with acute affordability crises often concentrated in the South, particularly Florida. Regression models provide compelling evidence that housing vouchers, public housing, and project-based Section 8 subsidies play an important role in limiting the extent to which large numbers of ELI households are competing for a shortage of low-cost rental units. However, these programmes do not respond quickly to local needs – such as those brought about by the Great Recession. A pilot study where local housing authorities had funding to be more agile and responsive would be an important step toward crafting better policy.