The brookings panel on economic activity held its ninetieth conference in Washington, D.C., on September 16 and 17, 2010, just as the economy was struggling to recover from the Great Recession. The Brookings Papers has always strived to provide timely policy analysis, and five of the papers in this volume study aspects of the causes and consequences of this slump. These papers examine the effects of the business cycle on the incomes of the very richest Americans; welfare, welfare reform, and poverty during recessions; the failure of modern macro-economic models to adequately forecast economic conditions; the role of shadow banking in the financial crisis and the appropriate regulatory response; and expenditures by state and local governments over the business cycle. The remaining paper studies the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act, a far-reaching education reform that will shape the skills of the labor force for years to come.
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