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More About This Title Boombustology
English
Based on a popular undergraduate seminar, entitled Financial Booms & Busts, taught by the author at Yale University, Boombustology presents a multi-disciplinary framework for identifying unsustainable booms and forthcoming busts.
The magnitude of our recent financial crisis mandates a firm understanding of this phenomenon before the next crisis occurs. Boombustology provides an in-depth look at several major booms and busts and offers a solid framework for thinking about future occurrences.
- Examines why booms and busts are not random and can therefore be identified
- Focuses upon various theoretical and disciplinary lenses useful in the study of booms and busts
- Contains a framework for thinking about and identifying forthcoming financial bubbles including several tell-tale indicators of a forthcoming bust.
- Illustrates the framework in action by evaluating China as a potential bubble in the making.
If you want to make better decisions in today’s turbulent investment environment, understanding the dynamics of booms and busts is the best place the start. Boombustology can help you achieve this elusive goal.
Vikram Mansharamani is a Lecturer at Yale University and a global equity investor.
English
English
Foreword xi
Preface Is There a Bubble in Boom–Bust Books? xvii
Acknowledgments xxiii
Introduction The Study of Financial Extremes: One-Armed Analysts, Secrets, Mysteries 1
Secrets versus Mysteries
Different Problems Necessitate Different Approaches
Financial Booms and Busts as Mysteries
Part I Five Lenses
Chapter 1 Microeconomic Perspectives: To Equilibrium or Not? 9
"Random Walks" and Accurate Prices: The Efficient Market Hypothesis
Constant Instability and Inefficiency: The Theory of Reflexivity
Reconciling Efficiency and Reflexivity
Chapter 2 Macroeconomic Perspectives: The Impact of Debt and Deflation on Asset Markets and Prices 23
The Magnifying Power of Leverage
Collateral Rates and Debt Dynamics
Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis
Debt Defl ation and Asset Prices
The Austrian Business Cycle Theory
Integrating the Macro Lenses
Chapter 3 The Psychology Lens: Homo economicus Meets Homo sapiens 45
The Study of Irrationality Is Born
Heuristics Gone Wild: How Rules of Thumb Lead Us Astray
Our Flawed Brains: Other Cognitive Issues
The Certainty of Uncertainty
Chapter 4 Political Foundations: Evaluating Property Rights, Price Mechanisms, and Political Distortions 69
Can Anyone Own Anything?
Prices: To Guide or Be Guided?
Political Distortions of Property and Price
Chapter 5 Biological Frameworks: Epidemiology and Emergence 85
Revealing the Maturity of an Unsustainable Boom
How Micro Simplicity Drives Macro Complexity
Emergent Behavior in Human Swarms
The Blind Leading the Blind
Part II Historical Case Studies
Chapter 6 Tulipomania: A Bubble in Seventeenth-Century Holland 103
The Uniqueness of Tulips
Fertile Soil for Bubble Formation
The Boombustology of Tulipomania
The Multilens Look
Chapter 7 The Great Depression: From Roaring Twenties to Yawning Thirties 117
Castles in the Sand
From Booming Twenties to Busted Thirties
The Boombustology of the Great Depression
The Multilens Look
Chapter 8 The Japanese Boom and Bust: A Credit-Fueled Bubble Economy 137
Japan(ese) as Different
An Overview of the Bubble Economy
The Boombustology of the Japanese Boom and Bust
The Multilens Look
Chapter 9 The Asian Financial Crisis: The Mirage of a Miracle 155
Boom Times in East Asia
Thailand Catches the Flu
The Boombustology of the Asian Financial Crisis
The Multilens Look
Chapter 10 The U.S. Housing Boom and Bust: The Homeowner’s Society Creates the People’s Panic 173
"Safe as Houses"
The Music Stops
The Boombustology of the U.S. Housing Boom and Bust
The Multilens Look
Part III Looking Ahead
Chapter 11 Spotting Bubbles before They Burst: A Method for Identifying Unsustainable Booms 193
Reflexivity and Self-Fulfi lling Dynamics
Leverage, Financial Innovation, and Cheap Money
Overconfidence
Policy-Driven Distortions
Epidemics and Emergence
Conclusions
Chapter 12 Boombustology in Action: Is China Next? 217
Tendencies toward Equilibrium
Leverage, Cheap Money, and Potential Defl ation
Conspicuous Consumption and Overconfi dence
Rights, Moral Hazard, and Political Distortion
Consensus, Silent Leadership, and Epidemics
The Unsustainable Chinese Story
Conclusion Hedgehogs, Foxes, and the Dangers of Making Predictions 243
Notes 247
About the Author 265
Index 267
