The Map and the Territory: Risk, Human Nature, and the Future of Forecasting

About the Book: The Map and the Territory:Risk, Human Nature, and the Future of Forecasting The financial crisis has called into question fundamental assumptions about economics - not least those of the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Now the Man from the Fed has answers Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us? To answer this question, Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better. Economic risk is a fact of life in every realm, and at every level, from government and business down to the home; whether were conscious of it or not, we make wagers on the future virtually every day, one way or another. But, even when were not driven by factors entirely beyond our conscious control, the maps by which we are steering are often out-of-date. The Map and the Territory is an important attempt to update our forecasting conceptual grid using twenty-first-century technologies. It integrates the history of economic prediction, the new work of behavioural economists, and the fruits of the authors own remarkable career to offer a lucid and empirical grounding in what we can know about economic forecasting and what we cant. The book explores the roles of differences of culture, and particularly of cultural inertia, in confounding our purely fiscal expectations, and probes what we can predict about the worlds biggest looming challenges - whether debt, the reform of the welfare state, the relationship of the West with China, or natural disasters in an age of global warming. No map is entirely the territory. But Greenspans approach, grounded in his trademark rigour, wisd

Alan Greenspan was born in 1926 and reared in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. After studying the clarinet at Juilliard and working as a professional musician, he earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in economics from New York University. In 1954, he cofounded the economic consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan & Co. From 1974 to 1977, he served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Gerald Ford. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed him chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, a position he held until his retirement in 2006. He is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller The Age of Turbulence.