Barry Z. Cynamon, currently Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and Steven M. Fazzari, Professor of Economics at Washington University in St. Louis, are researchers on consumer behavior and how it affects the economy. They wrote an op-ed for the St. Louis Post Dispatch in October 2007 in which they predicted that an end to the relentless trend of rising household debt and a subsequent crash in household spending could lead to a killer U.S. recession. Soon after, their prediction came true. Their current work, which examines how high and rising inequality is holding back the American economy, is part of the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s project on the Political Economy of Distribution. They explore how the massive debt which led to the Great Recession, the spending collapse that followed, and the stagnation that persists are all linked to income inequality. In the following interview, they discuss what their findings mean for America.Salon
Thomas Piketty is right: Income inequality is holding us back
Lynn Stuart Parramore interviews Barry Z. Cynamon and Steven M. Fazzari
