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Eight Centuries Of Financial Folly
Princeton University Press
October 2009
On Sale: September 30, 2009
496 pages ISBN: 0691142165 EAN: 9780691142166 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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. This book proves that premise
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.
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