Release Date: Monday, October 10, 2011

UGA Terry College of Business professors to discuss “The Great Recession: Three Years In” on Oct. 12

Athens, Ga. — Three years into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, a faculty panel from the University of Georgia Terry College of Business will offer their perspectives on the current economic crisis and what lies ahead at a public forum Wednesday, Oct. 12. The panel discussion, titled “The Great Recession: Three Years In,” will be held at 6:30 p.m. in room 213 of Sanford Hall on the UGA campus. The public forum is sponsored by the UGA Economics Society.

Panelists will include macroeconomics experts William D. Lastrapes and George Selgin from the Economics Department. Lastrapes and Selgin will share their views on why the economy has been slow to recover and describe what effect public policy changes might have. They also will discuss recent Federal Reserve Board actions and the implications of the European debt crisis. The panel discussion will close with questions from the audience.

High unemployment levels will be examined as well. “The problem with unemployment isn't a lack of spending,” Selgin said. “It’s a lack of bank-financed investments. That lack is largely due to three factors: the Federal Reserve’s policy of rewarding banks for not lending, banks’ inclination to stockpile cash anyway in anticipation of a European bond-market collapse, and a regulatory environment that has considerably lowered the anticipated profit of prospective small- to medium-size business startups. So, as long as it profits banks to hold cash rather than to lend it, the economy will continue to stagnate.”

For more information on the UGA department of economics, see http://www.terry.uga.edu/economics/.

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