Description
Book SynopsisOnce-in-a-lifetime financial crises have been a recurrent part of life in the last three decades. It is no longer possible to dismiss or ignore them as aberrations in an otherwise well-functioning system. Nor are they peculiar to recent times. Going back in history, asset price bubbles and bank-runs have been an endemic feature of the capitalist system over the last four centuries. The historical record offers a treasure trove of experience that may shed light on how and why financial crises happen and what can be done to avoid them - provided we are willing to learn from history.
This book interweaves historical accounts with competing economic crisis theories and reveals why commentaries are often contradictory. First, it presents a series of episodes from tulip mania in the 17th century to the subprime mortgage meltdown. In order to tease out their commonalities and differences, it describes political, economic, and social backgrounds, identifies the primary actors and inst
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Tulip Mania 3. The Mississippi Bubble 4. The South Sea Bubble 5. Rationality, Fundamentals, and Prices: First Principles 6. Explaining Asset Price Bubbles and Banking Crises 7. Technological Revolutions and Speculation: 19th-century British Railways and Banks 8. The American Experience I: The Antebellum Era 9. The American Experience II: The Gilded Age 10. The Crash of 1929 11. Mighty Magic of the Market 12. The Conjuration of the Financial Markets 13. The 1980s: Financial Capitalism Unchained 14. The 1990s: The Triumph of Financial Capitalism 15. The Latest Act: Sub-prime Mortgages and Derivatives 16. The Latest Act: The Crash of the 2000s 17. Two Legacies of the Subprime Sinkhole
