This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

Reinhart, Carmen M.; Rogoff, Kenneth S.

ISBN 10: 0691142165 / ISBN 13: 9780691142166

Published by Princeton University Press, 2009

About this Item

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine; Dust Jacket unclipped and very good. xlv+ 463pp; no markings, tears, or annotations, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2009. This is an amazing artifact of academic fraud and debunked yet resilient propaganda. The authors were soon after publication exposed as having manipulated data to suggest causal relationships between government debt levels and economic crises. Despite abundant proof of malpractice, the book remains in print and often cited by self-labeled 'fiscal conservatives' who point to the ginned up conclusion that government spending 'crowds out' private spending, which is axiomatically assumed to be more efficient than public spending. All of this is of course complete bunk unsupported by the data. Buy the book here to preserve this relic of deadly fakery--the faux theoretical justification for austerity - i.e. contrived scarcity and theft of social goods and public assets by politicians on behalf of their private paymasters.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691142165
• ISBN 13: 9780691142166
• Binding: Hardcover
• Printing: Printing Unknown
• Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

A comprehensive look at international financial crises that puts more recent economic meltdowns into perspective

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. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them 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.

About the Author

Carmen M. Reinhart is the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. She was previously professor of economics at the University of Maryland. Kenneth S. Rogoff is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and professor of economics at Harvard University. He is a frequent commentator for NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times.