Are poor people in the US responsible for causing the most severe global crisis in more than a generation? Not according to Daron Acemoglu of MIT (and a co-author of mine on other topics), who presented his findings at the American Finance Association’s annual meeting in early January. Acemoglu breaks down the Republican narrative into three distinct questions. First, is there evidence that US politicians respond to lower-income voters’ preferences or desires?The evidence on this point is not as definitive as one might like, but what we have – for example, from the work of Princeton University’s Larry Bartels – suggests that over the past 50 years, virtually the entire US political elite has stopped sharing the preferences of low- or middle-income voters. The views of office holders have moved much closer to those commonly found atop the income distribution. Get the complete paper at Did the Poor Cause the Crisis? by Simon Johnson – Project Syndicate.
