House of Debt Book

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Book Reviews and Media Coverage

Larry Summers on `House of Debt', Financial Times (print), 06/06/2014

“The most important economics book of 2014; it could be the most important book to come out of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession. Its arguments deserve careful attention, and its publication provides an opportunity to reconsider policy choices made in 2009 and 2010 regarding mortgage debt. House of Debt is important because it persuasively demonstrates that the conventional meta-narrative of the crisis and its aftermath, which emphasizes the breakdown of financial intermediation, is inadequate. ...All future work on financial crises will have to reckon with the household balance sheet effects they stress. After their work, we can still believe in the necessity of financial rescues; however, we can no longer believe in their sufficiency. And after their work, we have an important new agenda of reforms to consider if future crises are to be prevented.”

New York Times Review, Binyamin Appelbaum, The New York Times (print), 05/16/2014

Book Review: 'House of Debt' by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, The Wall Street Journal (print), 05/28/2014

No one (important) wants faster growth, The Economist, 05/13/2014
"House of Debt", distills lessons about the crisis from their recent research into one easily digestible package"

Europe faces the horrors of its own House of Debt, Wofgang Munchau, Financial Times, 06/15/2014
"In their magnificent book House of Debt, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi find that what is outwardly disguised as a credit crunch is in reality a fall in demand for loans."

The Agenda, Reihan Salam, National Review, 04/22/2014
"In House of Debt, their brilliant new book . . . Mian and Sufi detail the ways in which the housing bust damaged the economic well-being low- and middle-income households across the country."

Politico, 09/2014 “The country needed a bailout—the government just chose the wrong one. That’s the case economists Atif Mian and Amir Sufi made this year in a book aiming to rewrite the story of the recession—and what our politicians should have done about it. If they’re right, future crises may be handled entirely differently.”

The Opposite of Insurance, The Economist (print), 05/17/2014

The Unwinnable War, The Economist, 05/16/2014

Book Review by Heather Boushey, The Atlantic, 05/21/2014

Video Interview with Mian and Sufi on the "House of Debt", and a Review, Financial Times, 05/28/2014

Debt, Recession and Words of Advice: Interview with Atif Mian, The Leonard Lopate Show (audio), 06/04/2014

Mian and Sufi focus on household debt relief, Bloomberg Radio (audio), 05/27/2014

The Shared-Responsibility Mortgage Could Help Bubbleproof the Housing Market, BusinessWeek, 05/22/2014

Rethinking the Great Recession, MSNBC, 05/29/2014

Book Review: House Of Debt By Atif Mian And Amir Sufi, Seeking Alpha, 06/02/2014

Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Introduction to House of Debt followed by Q/A (video), 05/29/2014

The Biggest Policy Mistake of the Great Recession, by David Dayen, The Fiscal Times, 06/06/2014

The Great Credit Mistake, Adair Turner, Project Syndicate, 06/06/2014

Bucherkiste (10): Weg mit den Schulden!, Frankfurter Allgemeine (German), 06/10/2014

Kreditklemme trotz EZB-Programmen: So viel Geld - und alles fur die Katz, Wolfgang Munchau, Spiegel online (German), 06/09/2014

בחובות שלנו יש קסם מיוחד, interview with Calcalist on House of Debt (Hebrew), 06/13/2014

The Great Recession's "biggest policy mistake", Mark Thoma, CBS News, 05/29/2014

How Housing Debt and Student Loan Debt Create a Double Drag on the Economy, Whet Moser, Chicago , 06/12/2014

What really happened to the best plan to help overly-indebted homeowners?, Matthew Yglesias, Vox , 06/13/2014

Summers: Helping Homeowners Would Have Hurt Banks, David Dayen, 06/06/2014

Geithner, Mian and Sufi on the crisis, Robert Hockett, The Hill, 05/28/2014

Back Cover Endorsements

"Much has been written about the boom and subsequent bust that rocked the US economy during 2007-2009, but insightful and informed analysis is much rarer. This book is one of those rare gems. It offers an in-depth look at the state of housing, consumer credit, household incomes, and debt around the crisis and presents an informed discussion about its causes and consequences. The analysis of crisis resolution has resonance, not only for the United States, but for the many countries that are still entangled in severe financial difficulties." (Carmen Reinhart, Harvard University)

"House of Debt is a very important book, reaching beyond surface explanations of the Great Recession to identify the fundamental cause–excessive private debt built up in the pre-crisis boom years. It combines meticulous empirical research with an ability to see the big picture. Its message needs to be heeded and its proposals for reform seriously considered if we are to avoid repeating in future the mistakes of the past." (Lord Adair Turner, former chair, Financial Services Authority)

"Mian and Sufi have produced some of the most important and compelling research on the impact of debt on consumer behavior during the recent housing bubble and bust. This excellent new book presents and expands this research in a rigorous, yet engaging and accessible way." (Christina D. Romer, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and UC Berkeley)

"This is a profoundly important book that makes a huge range of serious empirical evidence on the financial crisis accessible to a broad readership. A compendium of Mian and Sufi's own celebrated work would already be a spectacular contribution, but this book is so much more. Although the authors present all views in a balanced, scholarly way, their quiet insistence that we should have moved faster to write down household mortgages is well-reasoned and compelling." (Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University)