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Global political economy
We begin this introductory chapter with a brief discussion of the 2008 global financial crisis, because it is affecting all the major substan¬tive issue areas we examine ranging from monetary relations to trade, multinational corporations, and international development. The differ¬ent accounts of the causes of the crisis also demonstrate how our theoretical views affect our interpretation of international events, and we place strong emphasis on the role of theorizing in IPE.
Financial crises have occurred over the years, and the world has become more susceptible to them with the growth of financial market liberalization since the 1970s. However, the 2008 financial meltdown was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and it also resulted in a social crisis. Problems included a significant increase in unemployment rates and major reductions in the value of pension funds.1 The most immediate cause of the crisis was a subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. housing market. Subprime mortgages are granted to people who do not qualify for regular mortgages at market interest rates because of their low incomes, poor credit ratings, or poor employment prospects. In the 1990s, U.S. mortgage lenders provided low inter¬est rates to entice people with poor credit ratings to borrow in the subprime market, and this led to a dramatic increase in U.S. home ownership. The increased demand for houses led to a building boom, which eventually resulted in an oversupply of houses and reduced U.S. housing prices in mid-2006. Mort¬gages were also coming up for renewal at higher interest rates that subprime borrowers could not pay, and they had to default on their loans. Because of the decline in housing prices, the scores of subprime borrowers ended up owing more than the value of their houses. Thus began the subprime mortgage crisis. The U.S. crisis became a global financial crisis in 2008, because the subprime mortgages had been repackaged and sold to investors around the world.
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