Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance

This myth shattering book reveals the methods Nouriel Roubini used to foretell the current crisis before other economists saw it coming and shows how those methods can help us make sense of the present and prepare for the future.

Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini electrified his profession and the larger financial community by predicting the current crisis well in advance of anyone else. Unlike most in his profession who treat economic disasters as freakish once-in-­a-lifetime events without clear cause, Roubini, after decades of careful research around the world, realized that they were both probable and predictable. Armed with an unconventional blend of historical analysis and global economics, Roubini has forced politicians, policy makers, investors, and market watchers to face a long-neglected truth: financial systems are inherently fragile and prone to collapse.

Drawing on the parallels from many countries and centuries, Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm, a professor of economic history and a New York Times Magazine writer, show that financial cataclysms are as old and as ubiquitous as capitalism itself. The last two decades alone have witnessed comparable crises in countries as diverse as Mexico, Thailand, Brazil, Pakistan, and Argentina. All of these crises-not to mention the more sweeping cataclysms such as the Great Depression-have much in common with the current downturn. Bringing lessons of earlier episodes to bear on our present predicament, Roubini and Mihm show how we can recognize and grapple with the inherent instability of the global financial system, understand its pressure points, learn from previous episodes of "irrational exuberance," pinpoint the course of global contagion, and plan for our immediate future. Perhaps most important, the authors-considering theories, statistics, and mathematical models with the skepticism that recent history warrants—explain how the world's economy can get out of the mess we're in, and stay out.

In Roubini's shadow, economists and investors are increasingly realizing that they can no longer afford to consider crises the black swans of financial history. A vital and timeless book, Crisis Economics proves calamities to be not only predictable but also preventable and, with the right medicine, curable.

Nouriel Roubini is a professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He has extensive senior policy experience in the federal government, having served from1998 to 2000 in the White House and the U.S. Treasury. He is the founder and chairman of Roubini Global Economics, an economic and financial consulting firm, regularly attends and presents his views at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, and other international forums, and is an adviser to central bankers around the world.
Stephen Mihm writes on economic and historical topics for The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, and other publications. The recipient of numerous fellowships, he was the Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business at Harvard Business School from 2003 to 2004. He is currently an associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, where he teaches courses on American political, cultural, and economic history.