Animal Spirits – How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism [Hardback]How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalismby George A Akerlof and Robert Shiller
Usually ships within 2 to 4 working days Description of Animal Spirits – How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Glob...The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting confidence in capital markets, 'animal spirits' are driving financial events worldwide. In this book, acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess, and put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics and restore prosperity. Akerlof and Shiller reassert the necessity of an active government role in economic policymaking by recovering the idea of animal spirits, a term John Maynard Keynes used to describe the gloom and despondence that led to the Great Depression and the changing psychology that accompanied recovery. Like Keynes, Akerlof and Shiller know that managing these animal spirits requires the steady hand of government - simply allowing markets to work won't do it.In rebuilding the case for a more robust, behaviorally informed Keynesianism, they detail the most pervasive effects of animal spirits in contemporary economic life - such as confidence, fear, bad faith, corruption, a concern for fairness, and the stories we tell ourselves about our economic fortunes - and show how Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and the rational expectations revolution failed to account for them. "Animal Spirits" offers a road map for reversing the financial misfortunes besetting us today. Read it and learn how leaders can channel animal spirits - the powerful forces of human psychology that are afoot in the world economy today. Title Information
Press and Industry Reviews"Akerlof and Shiller are the first to try to rework economic theory for our times. The effort itself makes their book a milestone...And their book takes their case not just to economists, but also to the general reader. It is short (176 pages of text) and easy enough for laymen to understand"- Louis Uchitelle, New York Times Book Review "There is barely a page of Animal Spirits without a fascinating fact or insight." - John Lanchester, New Yorker "Akerlof and Shiller succeed, too, in demonstrating that conventional macroeconomic analyses often fail because they omit not just readily observable facts like unemployment and institutions such as credit markets but also harder-to-document behavioral patterns that fall within the authors' notion of 'animal spirits.' Confidence plainly matters, and so does the absence of it. When the public mood swings from exuberance to anxiety, or even fear, the effect on asset prices as well as on economic activity outside the financial sector can be large." - Benjamin M. Friedman, New York Review of Books "Animal Spirits [is] . . . the new must-read in Obamaworld." - Michael Grunwald, Time "[Animal Spirits] really applies to all the big areas where we need change." - Peter Orszag, Obama budget director (quoted from Time magazine article) Write a review of this book Customer Reviews from AmazonAbout George A Akerlof and Robert ShillerGeorge A. Akerlof is the Daniel E. Koshland Sr. Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics. Robert J. Shiller is the best-selling author of "Irrational Exuberance" and "The Subprime Solution" (both Princeton). He is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University.Contents of Animal Spirits – How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global CapitalismPrefaceAcknowledgments Introduction Part One: Animal Spirits 1: Confidence and Its Multipliers 2: Fairness 3: Corruption and Bad Faith 4: Money Illusion 5: Stories Part Two: Eight Questions and Their Answers 6: Why Do Economies Fall into Depression? 7: Why Do Central Bankers Have Power over the Economy (Insofar as They Do)? Postscript to 7: The Current Financial Crisis: What Is to Be Done? 8: Why Are There People Who Cannot Find a Job? 9: Why Is There a Trade-off between Inflation and Unemployment in the Long Run? 10: Why Is Saving for the Future So Arbitrary? 11: Why Are Financial Prices and Corporate Investments So Volatile? 12: Why Do Real Estate Markets Go through Cycles? 13: Why Is There Special Poverty among Minorities? 14: Conclusion Notes References Index |
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