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How Human Psychology Drives The Economy, And Why It Matters For Global Capitalism
Princeton University Press
February 2009
On Sale: February 18, 2009
264 pages ISBN: 0691142335 EAN: 9780691142333 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that
powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of
nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing
prices to plummeting confidence in capital markets, "animal
spirits" are driving financial events worldwide. In this
book, acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller
challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess,
and put forward a bold new vision that will transform
economics and restore prosperity. Akerlof and Shiller reassert the necessity of an active
government role in economic policymaking by recovering the
idea of animal spirits, a term John Maynard Keynes used to
describe the gloom and despondence that led to the Great
Depression and the changing psychology that accompanied
recovery. Like Keynes, Akerlof and Shiller know that
managing these animal spirits requires the steady hand of
government--simply allowing markets to work won't do it. In
rebuilding the case for a more robust, behaviorally informed
Keynesianism, they detail the most pervasive effects of
animal spirits in contemporary economic life--such as
confidence, fear, bad faith, corruption, a concern for
fairness, and the stories we tell ourselves about our
economic fortunes--and show how Reaganomics, Thatcherism,
and the rational expectations revolution failed to account
for them. Animal Spirits offers a road map for reversing the
financial misfortunes besetting us today. Read it and learn how leaders can channel animal
spirits--the powerful forces of human psychology that are
afoot in the world economy today.
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