Deflation

Deflation is one of the most feared terms in economics. It immediately conjures visions of abandoned farms and idle factories, and streams of unemployed workers standing in breadlines.

In this important new book, Chris Farrell explains that deflation need not presage a collapse. In the process he provides new ways of looking at our economic and financial futures. More than an introduction to the subject, Farrell points out that deflation has always been a fundamental aspect of the business cycle.

As they did in 19th-century America, deflation and fast economic growth can coexist. However, the impact on business, consumers, investors, policymakers -- and you -- is the subject of this incisive volume.

Chris Farrell, contributing economics editor at BusinessWeek, is an award-winning journalist who started writing about the New Economy in the early 1990s. His cover stories include "Stuck," "Why Are We So Afraid of Growth?," "The Economics of Aging," "Productivity to the Rescue," and "IPO Capitalism." In 1999 and 2000 he received the Gerald Loeb Award in business journalism for two radio documentaries, "The World Turned Upside Down" and "Minnesota in the Dot.com Age." He is cohost and economics editor for Sound Money, a one-hour weekly personal finance call-in show produced by Minnesota Public Radio and syndicated nationally. Farrell is chief economics correspondent for the public radio documentary unit American RadioWorks and a regular commentator for Marketplace. He was host and executive editor of Right on the Money!, a nationally syndicated half-hour public television show, and author of Right on the Money!: Taking Control of Your Personal Finances.