In Buildups, Booms, and Busts, Thomas Oatley explores how America's military buildups have produced postwar economic booms that have culminated in monetary and financial crises. The 2008 subprime crisis as well as the housing bubble that produced it was the most recent manifestation of this buildup, boom, and bust cycle, developing as a consequence of the decision to deficit finance the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Earlier instances of financial crises were generated by deficit-financed buildups in the 1980s and the late 1960s. The buildup, boom, and bust pattern results from the way...

In Buildups, Booms, and Busts, Thomas Oatley explores how America's military buildups have produced postwar economic booms that have culminated in monetary and financial crises. The 2008 subprime crisis as well as the housing bubble that produced it was the most recent manifestation of this buildup, boom, and bust cycle, developing as a consequence of the decision to deficit finance the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Earlier instances of financial crises were generated by deficit-financed buildups in the 1980s and the late 1960s. The buildup, boom, and bust pattern results from the way...