This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

Richard — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 06:51:47 +0000

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

A comprehensive look at international financial crises that puts more recent economic meltdowns into perspective

Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing―and recovering―their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, “this time is different”―claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes―from medieval currency debasements to today’s subprime catastrophe. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much―or how little―we have learned.

Using clear, sharp analysis and comprehensive data, Reinhart and Rogoff document that financial fallouts occur in clusters and strike with surprisingly consistent frequency, duration, and ferocity. They examine the patterns of currency crashes, high and hyperinflation, and government defaults on international and domestic debts―as well as the cycles in housing and equity prices, capital flows, unemployment, and government revenues around these crises. While countries do weather their financial storms, Reinhart and Rogoff prove that short memories make it all too easy for crises to recur.

An important book that will affect policy discussions for a long time to come, This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.

Review

“Easily the most useful, and arguably the best, is this splendid piece of research and analysis on, as the subtitle says, 800 years’ worth of booms and busts.”—Bill Emmott, Survival

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have $1,000 for every time a pundit proclaims an era of endless prosperity, consigning booms and busts to the dumpster of history? The next time you hear that canard (and you will) pour yourself a single malt and dip into Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff’s landmark study, This Time Is Different. Wherever you open the book, you’ll find proof that debt-fueled expansions have ended in financial ruin for hundreds of years. . . . The result is a visual history laid out in beguilingly simple graphs and tables, making the book both definitive–a must read for professors and investors–and accessible to a wider audience.”—James Pressley, Bloomberg News

“[This Time is Different] is perhaps the finest study of financial crises ever published.”—Ezra Klein, Washington Post

“One of Library Journal Best Business Books – Economics/U.S. Economy category”

“[A] valuable new book.”, Idaho Statesman

“Finalist for the 2011 Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize”

“Mr. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University, accurately predicted the eurozone debt crisis and for years has been telling anyone who would listen that China posed the next big threat to the global economy. He is starting to look right, again. . . . ‘China is the classic “This time is different” story,’ Mr. Rogoff said.”—Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times

“Financial folly, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff show in this groundbreaking book, knows no boundaries and has no expiration date. . . . For a book built around numbers, This Time is Different makes for surprisingly good reading. The authors are well aware that human nature is at the heart of the disasters they document, and they enliven the text with brief and amusing accounts of charlatans and cheats.”—Paul Wiseman, USA Today

“Reinhart and Rogoff present a sobering reminder that financial crises are a serial phenomenon–caused in no small part by the seductive ‘this-time-is-different syndrome,’ the prevalent belief that to us, here and now, old economic laws of motion no longer apply. Their ambitious quantitative history of financial crises draws out sweeping parallels between financial crises, across times and continents; and between inflating away domestic debt, currency debasements, and defaults on external debt.”, Finance & Development

“For those who want to relearn the forgotten lessons of the past, This Time is Different, by economics professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, is an excellent place to start. . . . These are lessons worth learning.”—Liaquat Ahamed, National Interest

About the Author

Carmen M. Reinhart is the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. She was previously professor of economics at the University of Maryland. Kenneth S. Rogoff is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and professor of economics at Harvard University. He is a frequent commentator for NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times.

Product details

Full Audiobook MP3 Program
Full PDF E-Book Included
Print Length : 512 pages
ISBN-10 : 0691152640
ISBN-13 : 978-0691152646
Publisher : Princeton University Press; Reprint Edition (August 7, 2011)
Language: : English

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This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly