It's terrific to see a new book on an under-explored aspect of demography, namely the sex selection  against girls (by abortion or infanticide) which has left a number of Asian countries with a large imbalance of men over women. The book is Unnatural Selection by Mara Hvistendahl. It was reviewed this week by Joshua Kurlantzick, who described it as “a bracing work of investigative reporting.”

The figures are staggering. Rather than a female:male ration of 105:100, in China it's 121, in India 112, even in Albania 110. In 10 years China could have 30m adult men who cannot find wives, concentrated in the cities with large numbers of migrant labourers. Lianyungang, a booming port city, has China's
most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every
100 girls. Altogether Asia is estimated to have 163 million 'missing' girls and women. If policies and attitudes changed overnight, it would be a generation before the imbalances were resolved.

The best economic analysis of this most vicious war of males against females, waged against the absolutely most vulnerable, is by Amartya Sen. He brought this issue to public attention in a 1990 article. His conclusion bears repeating:

“In view of the enormity of the problems of women's survival in large
parts of Asia and Africa, it is surprising that these disadvantages have
received such inadequate attention. The numbers of “missing women” in
relation to the numbers that could be expected if men and women received
similar care in health, medicine, and nutrition, are remarkably large. A
great many more than a hundred million women are simply not there
because women are neglected compared with men. If this situation is to
be corrected by political action and public policy, the reasons why
there are so many “missing” women must first be better understood. We
confront here what is clearly one of the more momentous, and neglected,
problems facing the world today.”

I'm about to head off on my first visit to mainland China, albeit only a few days in Beijing.

After much browsing, and after already reading Richard McGregor's The Party and Lesley Chang's Factory Girls, I've packed: Country Driving by Peter Hessler; Chinese Lessons by John Pomfret; and hope to pick up at the airport Tide Players by Jianying Zha (reviewed in the weekend FT).

I know there are loads of others I should be reading, including some much more directly concerned with the economy. After reading various reviews, Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics by Yasheng Huang is at the top of my list on that front. But the ones I have seem ideal for a long flight. The serious stuff can wait until I get back with a tiny bit of experience under my belt.

 A Guest Review of Inside
Job, directed by Charles Ferguson, distributed by Sony Pictures Home
Entertainment

The
DVD version of the film Inside Job is released today (Monday June 13) in the UK.

There
is no shortage of books analysing the global financial crisis and, to some, it
may now seem like ancient history. So can a well made, 100 minute, Academy
Award winning work completed in 2010 add anything to our understanding of the
greatest economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression?

Yes.

For
those who have read widely about the crisis there are bound to be extra
revelations and anecdotes. For those who have not immersed themselves in the subject,
the film provides an accurate overview of what happened.

Inside
Job argues that the financial industry in the United States has become much too
large and used its wealth to permeate the political system to the disadvantage
of others in the economy and society. The deleted scenes section of the DVD
even contains a clip of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who at the time of filming was the
managing director of the IMF, agreeing with this.

The
film is in five parts.

Part
one outlines the increasing deregulation of financial markets from the 1980s
and how this eventually contributed to excessive leverage and risk taking that
led to the crisis. As Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the IMF notes
in a deleted scene, deregulation was a 20 year phenomenon. Much is made of the
failure to regulate the derivatives industry and the growth in the number of
people from the finance industry taking government posts. And then return to
well paid positions in finance at the end of their time in government.

Part
two explains the rise in house prices, the role played by CDS and CDOs and
credit ratings agencies in the build up to the crisis.

Part
three examines the crisis itself and the thinking, even miscalculation, behind
allowing Lehman Brothers to collapse. The lack of communication with other
countries is highlighted. In the film, Christine Lagarde, the French finance
minister, notes she heard of the decision only after it had been made. Her
reaction? “Holy cow.” (At least that’s what she was prepared to say to camera)

Part
four looks at accountability. High pay levels in the finance industry, the lack
of will to use regulatory powers appropriately and excessive lobbying of
politicians by financiers are highlighted. Dismay is expressed that, post
crisis, banks are now “bigger and more concentrated” than ever – a point also
made by the FCIC review of the crisis – and the lack of reform being proposed by the Obama
administration.

For
economists, this section is most uncomfortable. The claim is made (from the 79^th
to 89^th minute) that the
finance industry “corrupted the study of economics itself.” It is not the support many economists have given to
deregulation that jars most. That could have been made in good faith on
available knowledge at the time. The probing questions to several high profile
academics about why the titles of papers on CVs have been changed since the
crisis to make them appear more accurate, why payments from financial companies
to write reports have not been disclosed, and the mystified looks and angered
responses of some when asked about this, are disturbing. Perhaps, George
DeMartino’s recommendation in his book The Economists' Oath that the economics profession needs to consider a code of
ethics is onto something.

Part
five finishes the film, noting the increase inequality of wealth in the US that
has developed over the past few decades and bemoans how little has changed in
the political and financial landscape.

The
film has its faults. It implies, but does not state, that regulation of financial
markets and banks in Europe and Asia has been superior to that in the US; and it
could outline more fully how the financial system and regulation should be
reformed. The swipes at globalisation in part five are also questionable.

It
is not just the anecdotes and the story line that makes the film worthwhile, however. It
is the visual effect of seeing people try to justify their actions when their
case is weak, the compactness of the story and the underlying anger of the film
that makes it compelling and relevant even today. It keeps the story alive.

And
it is necessary to keep the story alive. In one of the deleted scenes sections
Satyajit Das notes that many specialist financiers are already asking “What’s
the problem? Things will go back to normal.” In the UK we have the chairman of
Barclays arguing that the time for remorse from bankers should be over. Meanwhile,
unemployment in many countries remains very high and growth disappointing. This
is not an acceptable “normal”.

Films
impart information in a way that allows a story to be kept alive more easily
than books. Films are more accessible to the general population.

I
suspect some consider film inferior to articles and books and even anti-intellectual.
They may argue that depth is sacrificed for catchy phrases and visual gimmickry. This
can happen but it can also occur in books and articles. It has not happened
with Inside Job. There are no Michael Moore type distractions. The story line
is clear. The main conclusions of the film may be disputed but so too can those
of any book or article.

Economists
must get used to presenting information in a more accessible manner. Video is
playing a growing part in this. YouTube and TED already provide much useful
economic information and the Khan Academy provides a rich source of tutorials.
Inside Job adds to the list.

Ian
Bright

I
am writing in a personal capacity

The juxtaposition of several reviews in today's newspapers set me thinking about the familiar issue of class in Britain. In the Financial Times, John Lloyd has a thoughtful books essay on social inequality, mobility and class. One of the books he reviews, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class,
by Owen Jones, is also reviewed by Lynsey Hanley in The Guardian. (She herself wrote a terrific book on working class Britain, Estates.)

Lloyd concludes that the books he reviews greatly overdo the miseries. In many ways working class life has improved. Hanley makes a similar observation about the lack of texture in Chavs – she finds that it refuses to admit that working class people are not mere helpless victims: class hatred is a “collusive, often subtle, process which demeans everyone. In fact, a
great deal of chav-bashing goes on within working-class
neighbourhoods, partly because of the age-old divide between those who
aim for “respectability” and those who disdain it.” But again, as Lloyd writes: “[T]he
dangers are real enough. Even if neo-fascist explosions fail to
materialise – and it is not idle to warn of the possibility – still the
waste of lives and the harm that the underclasses do to themselves and
to surrounding society deserves a passionate advocate.”

The salience of these new books is the context of great income inequality and a more static society than we have had for decades (see the recent review here of The Labour Market in Winter). Just recently, I was discussing the word 'chavs' with a friend who says he uses it specifically to mean people from low-income backgrounds who do not work, have never worked, and are benefit-dependent – rather than as a general term of class hatred or snobbery. That is a large and intractable social problem which has appeared in the past generation. It's a sign of the times that a Conservative columnist, Max Hastings, argues in an article elsewhere in today's Financial Times that British society will not tolerate for much longer the large and rapidly-rising paypackets of bankers and executives, when low and also middle income earners are suffering a lengthy decline in living standards.

So it's all the more paradoxical that Britain's obsession with the aristocracy and stately homes continues too. In the Guardian Review Blake Morrison looks at their role in our literature, from Brideshead Revisited on. The salience of the stately home in the countryside of southern England is a marker of the degree of tension in Britain's class system. And in our national identity too. Hilary Mantel once wrote a brilliant essay noting that the construction of national identity around this narrow class and geography made it difficult for others – in her case a northern English, Catholic, working class female – to know in what way they belonged to their country. With the greatest income inequality since the 1920s and the forces for devolution on the rise again, it's no surprise that social alienation is a question of huge interest once again.

As I write this, my husband is picking out 'Jerusalem' on the piano downstairs…..very apt!

In economics as in any other academic field, it's becoming ever harder to keep abreast of all the research outside one's own speciality. Survey articles are invaluable – AEA members get the Journal of Economic Literature and the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Another journal, the Journal of Economic Surveys, is celebrating its 25th birthday and to celebrate is giving access to the Editors' pick of articles – something here for most macroeconomists and econometricians, and some other nuggets as well.