Barry Eichengreen of the University of California at Berkeley and Michael Bordo of Rutgers University identify 139 financial crises between 1973 and 1997 (of which 44 took place in high-income countries), compared with a total of only 38 between 1945 and 1971.

ECONOMIST: Greed��and fear

Michael Bordo of Rutgers University and Christopher Meissner of the University of California, Davis, looked at 14 financial busts in rich countries between 1920 and 2008 and found that these crises were typically preceded by credit booms, but only occasionally by rising inequality.

ECONOMIST: Less inequality does not need to mean less efficiency