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3.38 AVERAGE
3.38 AVERAGE
If I wanted to read economic generalizations and platitudes instead of actual economic theory then I'd just [insert quippy statement about eating a brochure]
I was skeptical of some of the data in the book and surprise! apparently most of it is deeply flawed with the book committing some of academic research’s most cardinal sins. Alongside that, it is just a slog to go thru.
I should have read this a while ago, but I was a little busy in 2009. The data is formidably comprehensive.
I believe that this is the best book on Economics of the 21st century. I can't seem to get through an issue of the Economist nor the Financial Times that does not contain at least one reference to it. Hopefully it will change the way that economics is done with less reference to theory and more to history which is the closest that the field will get to experimentation.
ReinHart and Rogoff have spent many years building up a huge database of over 800 years of economic and financial data that detail debts, deficits, and economic growth and contractions. The result is mocked in the title because nothing is truly different and instead things are simply more of the same. It's how they have been able to say in countless interviews and articles since that the current recession will not be over any time soon. Highly recommended.
ReinHart and Rogoff have spent many years building up a huge database of over 800 years of economic and financial data that detail debts, deficits, and economic growth and contractions. The result is mocked in the title because nothing is truly different and instead things are simply more of the same. It's how they have been able to say in countless interviews and articles since that the current recession will not be over any time soon. Highly recommended.
*Very* data heavy, but they walk you through it pretty well. A few highlights are that:
a) on the long view, defaults, inflation and other crisis are quite common, and sovereign defaults on external debt are particularly common amidst emerging market economies.
b) in the economics literature, little to nothing has been done to analyse domestic defaults, except as bailouts relate to external defaults, and what data they were capable of compiling seems to indicate that domestic defaults are more common, and that domestic debt is far more highly leveraged than external debt.
c) external defaults are largely history for nations that have had international markets for a couple centuries, but banking crisis persist and their effects scale; they affect wealthy and poor nations proportionately, for the most part.
d) asset devaluation tends to precede banking crisis, with housing depressions tending to average 4-6 years. As with domestic defaults, very little research appears to have been done in these areas until recently. Housing pricing correlate with banking crises.
e) International financial regulatory bodies & frameworks are warranted.
f) "central government debt typically increas[es] by about 86 percent on average (in real terms) during the three years following the crisis".
This book is ideal for the more hardcore economics geeks (Nathanael Snow), but they're released most of their data sets so expect more interesting analyses from them in the future.
a) on the long view, defaults, inflation and other crisis are quite common, and sovereign defaults on external debt are particularly common amidst emerging market economies.
b) in the economics literature, little to nothing has been done to analyse domestic defaults, except as bailouts relate to external defaults, and what data they were capable of compiling seems to indicate that domestic defaults are more common, and that domestic debt is far more highly leveraged than external debt.
c) external defaults are largely history for nations that have had international markets for a couple centuries, but banking crisis persist and their effects scale; they affect wealthy and poor nations proportionately, for the most part.
d) asset devaluation tends to precede banking crisis, with housing depressions tending to average 4-6 years. As with domestic defaults, very little research appears to have been done in these areas until recently. Housing pricing correlate with banking crises.
e) International financial regulatory bodies & frameworks are warranted.
f) "central government debt typically increas[es] by about 86 percent on average (in real terms) during the three years following the crisis".
This book is ideal for the more hardcore economics geeks (Nathanael Snow), but they're released most of their data sets so expect more interesting analyses from them in the future.
Read it for extra credit for macroeconomics. Definitely some very interesting conclusions to be drawn from Reinhart, Rogoff, et al.'s work. But my god is their writing difficult to slog through. It's very terminology-heavy and not too accessible for non-economists unless you are willing to put in more time than I was.
Couldn't get through this the first time. Trying again after a recommendation from a friend to skip the first few chapters.
More a thesis than a book, it is very dry reading. However, Greece & friends are showing the truth of the contents...
This is a very interesting book, full of data and respective macro economic interpretation. The last words of the book resume it all
"This time may seem different, but all too often a deeper look shows it is not. Encouragingly, history does point to warning signs that policy makers can look at to assess risk—if only they do not become too drunk with their credit bubble–fueled success and say, as their predecessors have for centuries, “This time is different" "
This piece of work is a detailed analysis on the history of country debts and their respective default.
It analysis, for example, in good detail the nature of public debt, by separating it into external public debt and domestic one and with this in mind and with the help of a bunch of data it draws some interesting conclusions about the nature and consequences of these different kind of debt in the economy and the impact on the respective solvability. The book also help us to have a deeper understanding over the differences between concepts like illiquidity and insolvency and how these play different roles in the evolution of a probable default. In my opinion the biggest point, and well addressed, in this book is the human psychology and how that lead us into the same errors again and again. The time window of analysis is, also a very interesting one, since the evolution of countries economy follows a slower rhythm than human lifetime it follows that society tends to forget about this trivial fact and fall into the sad trap that "this time is different" again and again. I believe that this is a must read, specially nowadays that governments seems to be doing the same old mistakes.
"This time may seem different, but all too often a deeper look shows it is not. Encouragingly, history does point to warning signs that policy makers can look at to assess risk—if only they do not become too drunk with their credit bubble–fueled success and say, as their predecessors have for centuries, “This time is different" "
This piece of work is a detailed analysis on the history of country debts and their respective default.
It analysis, for example, in good detail the nature of public debt, by separating it into external public debt and domestic one and with this in mind and with the help of a bunch of data it draws some interesting conclusions about the nature and consequences of these different kind of debt in the economy and the impact on the respective solvability. The book also help us to have a deeper understanding over the differences between concepts like illiquidity and insolvency and how these play different roles in the evolution of a probable default. In my opinion the biggest point, and well addressed, in this book is the human psychology and how that lead us into the same errors again and again. The time window of analysis is, also a very interesting one, since the evolution of countries economy follows a slower rhythm than human lifetime it follows that society tends to forget about this trivial fact and fall into the sad trap that "this time is different" again and again. I believe that this is a must read, specially nowadays that governments seems to be doing the same old mistakes.