Book Review: "American Bonds: How Credit Markets Shaped a Nation"

Quinn’s American Bonds shows that the federal government’s credit policies were important factors behind the particular evolution of securitization and credit markets in the United States. Unfortunately, she completely omits an analysis of the policies’ efficiency. She also fails to contribute to our understanding of whether the government was necessary for the formation and development of these particular markets or if private actors could have provided similar financial specialization in the absence of government involvement. In the end, American Bonds merely provides a historical overview of credit markets without seriously investigating whether the government’s intervention was indispensable or weighing the costs and benefits of its involvement.