This book deals with the current crises from a somewhat different the usual perspectives. It claims that causes and policy implications of these crises cannot be properly assessed by focusing on allocative efficiency or income growth alone; it requires a more general approach, based on social costs.

Revitalizing the Institutional Theory of Social Costs to Address Contemporary Cumulative Crises. Introduction, Pietro Frigato, Paolo Ramazzotti and Wolfram Elsner, Part One: The Theory of Social Costs (TSC) as a Basic Pillar of Institutional Economics, 1. Overhead Costs and Social Costs in a Capitalist Economy, Laurence Shute, 2. The Institutional Approach to Social Costs, Sebastian Berger, 3. Social Costs and Normative Economics, Paolo Ramazzotti, 4. Rationality, Institutions and Social Costs, Arild Vatn, 5. 'Old' Institutionalism and the Evolutionary Theory of the Firm, Pietro Frigato and Francisco Santos-Arteaga, Part Two: Applications of the TSC to the Main Contemporary Crises, 6. The Financial Crisis and Social Costs: Causes and Effects, L. Randall Wray, 7. From the Crisis of Distribution to the Distribution of the Costs of the Crisis, Özlem Onaran, 8. The Financial Crisis and Developing Countries, Jayati Ghosh, 9. On the Social Costs of Myopic Business Cultures and Their Institutional Roots, Fred Jennings, 10. Environmental Crises: Social Costs and Policy Options, Christine Oughton, 11. The Social Costs of Private Elderly Care, Frank Schulz-Nieswandt, Peter Sauer, and Remi Maier-Rigaud, 12. Occupational Insecurity and Growing Inequalities: the Role of Protective Labour Legislation and the Development of Workfare within Social Activation Policies, Roberto Rizza, Part Three: General Perspectives, 13. Financial, Economic and Environmental Crises: Open Issues and Policy Options, Riccardo Petrella, 14. A Crisis of Freedom, Michele Cangiani