Monthly Archives: December 2011

A Spiritual Response to the Financial Crisis? Making Decisions for the Really Long Run – Calomiris

Faith & Economics
NUMBER 58, Fall 2011

A Spiritual Response to the Financial Crisis? Making Decisions for the Really Long Run

Charles W. Calomiris
Columbia University and NBER

Abstract: After outlining the multiple causes of the recent financial crisis (monetary policy, housing policy, the deliberate underestimation of risk in financial markets, and regulatory failures to identify the risks of subprime lending), and suggesting a policy response (policy interventions to restore asset prices to their long-term values, combined with measures to address long-term design flaws in the regulatory system), this article reflects on spiritual responses to the crisis. Proper responses to any crisis, including a financial crisis, require both internal reflection and prayer, and external action grounded in reflection. The quality of the decisions we make as individuals and as a society will depend on our capacity to learn from suffering, our humility in understanding and shaping our world, our ability to remain faithful and hopeful, and our commitment to act as true witnesses.

JEL: A11, A13, G18

Key Words: financial crisis, financial regulation, financial policy, spirituality, religion.

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Divisible Goods and Common Good: Reflections on Caritas in Veritate

Faith & Economics
NUMBER 58, Fall 2011

Divisible Goods and Common Good: Reflections on Caritas in Veritate

Francis Russel Hittinger
University of Tulsa

Abstract: Pope Benedict XVI issued the encyclical Caritas in veritate
(Benedict XVI, 2009) on the heels of the global economic crisis. It pleased
some readers, dismayed others, but seemed to perplex many more. I neither defend nor quarrel with the encyclical. Instead, I hope to remove some impediments that social scientists, and especially academic economists, might have when they read social encyclicals, including Benedict’s. I make three main points. First, the term “social” in this tradition does not take its meaning chiefly from the social goods and utilities usually studied by social scientists. Social refers, in the first place, to modalities of social union. Second, the Catholic tradition does not take a one-sided view of either state redistribution or the logic of private exchange. Third, while the tradition speaks of different kinds of justice, it is also quite insistent that natural and supernatural loves are the companion of justice.

JEL: A12, A13, Z13

Key Words: Catholic Social Doctrine, Caritas in Veritate, common good, social justice, social charity

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