Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #223 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 496 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780691142166
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
The authors use copious amounts of data . . . to make the compelling case that any well-informed person should have seen the Great Recession coming. The essence of their book is that while financial crises come in different varieties, they are not mysteriously born of undersea earthquakes, but frequently occurring events that can be spotted and even controlled if politicians and regulators know what to look for.
(Devin Leonard New York Times )

Reinhart and Rogoff have compiled an impressive database, which covers eight centuries of government debt defaults from around the world. They have also collected statistics on inflation rates from every country where information is available and on banking crises and international capital flows over the past couple of centuries. This lengthy historical study gives what they call a 'panoramic view' of the unending cycle of boom and bust, showing how claims that 'this time is different' are invariably proven wrong. . . . This Time Is Different doesn't simply explain what went wrong in our most recent crisis. This book also provides a roadmap of how things are likely to pan out in the years to come. . . . This Time Is Different is an important addition to the literature of financial history.
(Edward Chancellor Wall Street Journal )

[E]ssential reading . . . both for its originality and for the sobering patterns of financial behaviour it reveals.
(Economist )

The four most dangerous words in finance are 'this time is different.' Thanks to this masterpiece by Carmen Reinhart at the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard, no one can doubt this again. . . . The authors have put an immense amount of work into collecting the data financial institutions needed if they were to have any chance of making quantitative risk management work.
(Martin Wolf Financial Times )

Everyone working on economic policy should own This Time is Different and open it for a bracing blast of sobriety when things seem to be going well.
(Greg Ip Washington Post )

[A] fine new history of financial debacles.
(Daniel Gross Newsweek )

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 )

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have delivered a powerful and eloquent statement. . . . Reinhart and Rogoff have done an extraordinary job in putting together statistics on government debt--a task that economic historians should have done long ago but shied away from because of the difficulties of defining 'government', which is often complex and multi-layered.
(Harold James The American Interest )

This is certainly one of the must-read books of the year.
(Arnold Kling Econlog.com )

Rogoff and Reinhart . . . provide an eye-opening look at the cycles of boom and bust and how governments deal with those cycles.
(Arkansas Business )

[A] valuable new book.
(Idaho Statesman )

Review
This is quite simply the best empirical investigation of financial crises ever published. Covering hundreds of years and bringing together a dizzying array of data, Reinhart and Rogoff have made a truly heroic contribution to financial history. This single marvelous volume is worth a thousand mathematical models.
(Niall Ferguson, author of "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World" )

From the Inside Flap

"This is quite simply the best empirical investigation of financial crises ever published. Covering hundreds of years and bringing together a dizzying array of data, Reinhart and Rogoff have made a truly heroic contribution to financial history. This single marvelous volume is worth a thousand mathematical models."--Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

"This Time is Different is terrific, for it gives just the perspective we need on the current world economic crisis. People can't expect to understand the current crisis without some in-depth look at past crises. That is exactly what this excellent and timely book provides."--Robert J. Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance and coauthor of Animal Spirits

"You will be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive and insightful analysis of financial crises. Reinhart and Rogoff's superb book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand past and present crises, as well as navigate those of tomorrow."--Mohamed El-Erian, author of When Markets Collide

"This Time Is Different is a tremendously exciting, topical, and controversial book on the history of debt and default. This one belongs on everyone's shelf."--Barry Eichengreen, author of The European Economy since 1945

Customer Reviews

Prodigious and full of gallows humor
Rogoff and Reinhart, two very substantive (and, I might add, earnest) economists, have produced a prodigious work which will be read and studied for years. They have gathered mountains of data from primary and secondary sources and reduced it to dozens of charts and graphs, a heroic work in its own right. Their intention, God bless 'em, is to lay out the follies that have led to economic/financial crises over the last eight centuries. Their findings: humans have not learned from past mistakes. The title is ironic and is worthy of Peter DeVries.

The authors say it is "almost comical" that no governments reveal their true financial condition today, nor have they done so in the past. The lack of transparency and the shenanigans that go on behind the curtains contribute, of course, to the human suffering that ensues in crisis after crisis.

One needs to find this book comical if one is not to slip into a permanent depression about the utter failure of national leaders to address shortcomings in national domestic and foreign economic policies in order to avoid systemic crises. No one has, from the 13th century onward, anywhere in the world.

The authors persist in saying that they hope their monumental effort will lead to an examination by policymakers of past mistakes and help them avoid future mistakes. I say, "Good luck with that." In my opinion, this book ranks with the complete works of Shakespeare in illuminating the human condition. Or Bruegel, or Beethoven. It will not bring about change, but it will entertain in a deeply satisfying way.

A must read
As Martin Wolf from Financial Times has written... "A MASTERPIECE"

One of the most interesting things about this books is that it combines a very rigorous research on the topic while keeping it accessible to a large audience. The book is self-contained, with definitions provided along the way, which makes it easy for people with no previous knowledge in economics to enjoy and understand it.

The authors also put together a database without precedents in the area which not only makes their statements much stronger, but also makes a great contribution to the field.

The empirical counter part to Kindleberger's Manias,Panics,and Crashes:A History of Financial Crises
The authors do a good job in demonstrating the highly repetitive,ergodic nature of financial crises over the last 800 hundred years.This book can be regarded as providing additional amounts of empirical support for the conclusions originally arrived at by Adam Smith in 1776 in his The Wealth of Nations (1776,pp.260-340 of the Modern Library (Cannan) edition with the foreward by Max Lerner) , by J M Keynes in 1936 in chapters 12,17,and 22 of his General Theory and by Kindleberger in his original 1978 book,titled Manias,Panics,and Crashes.Smith, Keynes and Kindleberger all concluded that private banker or financier financed/backed speculation was the major culprit in producing the standard process of a bubble,inflated bubble,mania,panic,crash,and then a recession,depression,or economic downturn.
The authors do acknowledge the role of speculation.However,they appear to be trying to downplay this cause while emphasizing the role of government, as far as apportioning blame for the great economic damages that result from allowing the speculative process to proceed unhindered.This makes sense only if it is first recognized that private interests often take control of the government regulatory apparatus.Rogoff is a past supporter of the efficient market hypothesis(EMH).The EMH,now completely rejected ,except by economists who have built their academic careers promoting this Ptolomaic type,artificially created,model , essentially concludes that bubbles are not possible.The EMH directly contradicts not only just the historical record of the last 800 hundred years,but of the last 3,500 years where the main source of speculation was in land and precious metals.

A reader,who has read any of the authors mentioned above, will not learn anything new.However, the additional technical analysis performed by the authors does allow one to conclude that the EMH is simply false,although this conclusion appears self evident from the historical record provided in past works other than this one.Only economists ,concentrated mainly in the economics and business departments at the University of Chicago,were able to delude themselves into believing that bubbles were impossible.The authors should have recognized the vast empirical work of Benoit Mandelbrot who had proven the EMH false back in the late 1950's-early 1960's.

One criticism of the book is that ,while Kindleberger is covered,neither Keynes,Smith ,or Mandelbrot is adequately acknowledged.Another is that the current ,severe theoretical shortcomings in financial economics should have been at least mentioned in the introduction,footnotes,or conclusion of the book.