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This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly Paperback – Illustrated, August 7, 2011
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Carmen M. Reinhart
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Kenneth S. Rogoff
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Print length512 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherPrinceton University Press
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Publication dateAugust 7, 2011
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Dimensions5.47 x 1.4 x 8.54 inches
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ISBN-100691152640
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ISBN-13978-0691152646
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Winner of the 2010 Paul A. Samuelson Award, TIAA-CREF"
"One of USA Today's "Year's Best Business Books To Make Sense of Financial Crisis""
"Listed on Bloomberg.com by James Pressley as one of "our favorite financial-crisis books this year""
"Shortlisted for the 2010 Spear's Book of the Year Award in Financial History"
"Finalist for the 2011 Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize"
"Runner-Up for the Book of the Year, The Atlantic"
"Finalist for the 2009 Business Book Award ("Best of the Rest") in Current Interest, 800-CEO-READ"
"Kenneth Rogoff, Recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, Center for Financial Studies"
"One of Library Journal Best Business Books - Economics/U.S. Economy category"
"Mr. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University, accurately predicted the eurozone debt crisis and for years has been telling anyone who would listen that China posed the next big threat to the global economy. He is starting to look right, again. . . . 'China is the classic "This time is different" story,' Mr. Rogoff said."---Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times
"[E]ssential reading . . . both for its originality and for the sobering patterns of financial behaviour it reveals." ― Economist
"Reinhart and Rogoff have compiled an impressive database, which covers eight centuries of government debt defaults from around the world. They have also collected statistics on inflation rates from every country where information is available and on banking crises and international capital flows over the past couple of centuries. This lengthy historical study gives what they call a 'panoramic view' of the unending cycle of boom and bust, showing how claims that 'this time is different' are invariably proven wrong. . . . This Time Is Different doesn't simply explain what went wrong in our most recent crisis. This book also provides a roadmap of how things are likely to pan out in the years to come. . . . This Time Is Different is an important addition to the literature of financial history."---Edward Chancellor, Wall Street Journal
"Everyone working on economic policy should own This Time is Different and open it for a bracing blast of sobriety when things seem to be going well."---Greg Ip, Washington Post
"[T]he most comprehensive study of financial crises and their aftermath."---Eduardo Porter, New York Times
"The authors use copious amounts of data . . . to make the compelling case that any well-informed person should have seen the Great Recession coming. The essence of their book is that while financial crises come in different varieties, they are not mysteriously born of undersea earthquakes, but frequently occurring events that can be spotted and even controlled if politicians and regulators know what to look for."---Devin Leonard, New York Times
"[A] terrific book."---Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times
"This Time is Different takes a Sergeant Friday, just-the-facts-ma'am approach: before we start theorizing, let's take a hard look at what history tells us. One side benefit of this approach is that the current book manages to be both extremely useful to professional economists and accessible to the intelligent lay reader. The Reinhart-Rogoff approach has already paid off handsomely in making sense of current events."---Robin Wells and Paul Krugman, New York Review of Books
"Among policy experts and economists, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly . . . has become so influential that when somebody says, 'We live in a Reinhart-Rogoff world,' everybody else in the room nods sagely."---Justin Lahart, Wall Street Journal
"Professor Rogoff and his longtime collaborator Carmen Reinhart . . . know more about the history of financial crises than anyone alive. The pair have just published their broad survey of financial crises, This Time is Different. In an era when most 'analysts' rely on maybe 30 or 40 years' worth of financial history--and then only that of the U.S.--the authors' knowledge of financial crises and government bond defaults going back to the Spanish empire and before offers a richer perspective."---Brett Arends, Wall Street Journal
"[O]ne of the most important economic books of 2009."---Jon Hilsenrath, Wall Street Journal
"[T]he definitive book on financial crises."---Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post
"Two top-notch economists provide a clear and interesting explanation of why economic crises keep occurring. Broadly speaking, downturns such as the one we are recovering from are historically associated with characteristics that should sound quite familiar to today's investors." ― David Schwartz, Financial Times
"[A] masterpiece."---Martin Wolf, Financial Times
"The four most dangerous words in finance are 'this time is different.' Thanks to this masterpiece by Carmen Reinhart at the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard, no one can doubt this again. . . . The authors have put an immense amount of work into collecting the data financial institutions needed if they were to have any chance of making quantitative risk management work."---Martin Wolf, Financial Times
"Here's a deep and rewarding assignment for all of you, young and old, poor and rich, bullish and bearish. Retire to a quiet spot with a copy of This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff."---Bob Lenzner, Forbes.com
"[A] fine new history of financial debacles."---Daniel Gross, Newsweek
"Wouldn't it be nice to have $1,000 for every time a pundit proclaims an era of endless prosperity, consigning booms and busts to the dumpster of history? The next time you hear that canard (and you will) pour yourself a single malt and dip into Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff's landmark study, This Time Is Different. Wherever you open the book, you'll find proof that debt-fueled expansions have ended in financial ruin for hundreds of years. . . . The result is a visual history laid out in beguilingly simple graphs and tables, making the book both definitive--a must read for professors and investors--and accessible to a wider audience."---James Pressley, Bloomberg News
"Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have delivered a powerful and eloquent statement. . . . Reinhart and Rogoff have done an extraordinary job in putting together statistics on government debt--a task that economic historians should have done long ago but shied away from because of the difficulties of defining 'government', which is often complex and multi-layered."---Harold James, The American Interest
"Unlike prior narrative accounts of market panics from such finance writers as Charles Kindleberger and Edward Chancellor, Reinhart and Rogoff give us a data-driven study that is global in sweep but also a model of clarity. The authors package their notably nonhysterical analysis of the latest crisis in a large, self-contained section of the book inviting harried readers to skip right ahead to it."---Daniel Akst, CNNMoney.com
"A tour de force of quantitative analysis covering financial crises affecting 66 countries over the past 800 years, the book identifies pre-crisis patterns that recur with eerie consistency. This Time is Different is a must-read for anyone on the lookout for canaries in coal mines." ― Barron's
"This is certainly one of the must-read books of the year."---Arnold Kling, Econlog.com
"Rogoff and Reinhart . . . provide an eye-opening look at the cycles of boom and bust and how governments deal with those cycles." ― Arkansas Business
"[A] valuable new book." ― Idaho Statesman
"Having studied mountains of economic data during the past eight centuries, the authors insightfully point out the highly repetitive nature of financial crises resulted from a dangerous mix of hubris, euphoria and amnesia." ― Shanghai Daily
"This Time is Different . . . is an unusually powerful bull detector designed to protect investors and taxpayers alike--eventually, at least, and provided the spirit is willing. . . . The book's most memorable passages--what the authors call its 'core life'--are to be found not in colorful stories about long-ago personalities, but rather in its various tables and figures. They take some time to comprehend, but any responsible citizen can and ought to consider they evidence they present. It is overwhelming."---David Warsh, Harvard Magazine
"Financial folly, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff show in this groundbreaking book, knows no boundaries and has no expiration date. . . . For a book built around numbers, This Time is Different makes for surprisingly good reading. The authors are well aware that human nature is at the heart of the disasters they document, and they enliven the text with brief and amusing accounts of charlatans and cheats."---Paul Wiseman, USA Today
"The credit crunch of 2007 became the financial crash of 2008 and the recession of 2009. But there has been much debate about the scale of this crisis, and how it ranks against previous events. Reinhart and Rogoff have produced the most detailed study yet of financial crises, going back as far as 12th-century China. . . . [This Time is Different] will be a vital source of reference in debates on the causes and consequences of financial crises. By cataloguing so thoroughly every known instance of financial crisis, it performs a significant service and opens up new lines of inquiry."---Andrew Gamble, New Statesman
"[T]his is the kind of economics we desperately need, as it is relevant, fact-based and replete with wisdom from the past--and lessons for the future." ― Irish Times
"For those who want to relearn the forgotten lessons of the past, This Time is Different, by economics professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, is an excellent place to start. . . . These are lessons worth learning."---Liaquat Ahamed, National Interest
"This book's distinctive strength is that it's built around a massive international database going back as far as twelfth-century China and medieval Europe." ― Harvard Business Review
"[S]uperb."---Neil Reynolds, Globe & Mail
"Reinhart and Rogoff have compiled an encyclopedic analysis of the history of financial crises over the last 750 years. But their volume is not merely of historical interest. Rather, it has great relevance for anyone interested in understanding how the current financial crisis is likely to unfold." ― Choice
"Reinhart and Rogoff present a sobering reminder that financial crises are a serial phenomenon--caused in no small part by the seductive 'this-time-is-different syndrome,' the prevalent belief that to us, here and now, old economic laws of motion no longer apply. Their ambitious quantitative history of financial crises draws out sweeping parallels between financial crises, across times and continents; and between inflating away domestic debt, currency debasements, and defaults on external debt." ― Finance & Development
"[I]nstant classic tome on debt crises."---Alen Mattich, Dow Jones Newswires
"[A]wesome."---William Easterly, AidWatch
"One book in particular has been circulating among economists and market insiders. This Time is Different analyzes vast amounts of historical data on financial debacles, including state failures around the world, bank crises, currency woes and high inflation. The title satirizes those who fail to learn from past blunders and repeat them while insisting, 'This time is different.'"---Hideo Tsuchiya, Nikkei Weekly
"Reinhart and Rogoff have produced a splendid book detailing the massive self-destructive behavior that all states have been undergoing over the past several centuries. . . . Reading this excellent book on the paths of previous economic cycles could help avoid some of the worst results of our self-destructive financial acts."---Lloyd Demause, Journal of Psychohistory
"Anyone looking for a more academic take on where this meltdown places in the history of financial folly should turn to This Time is Different, a magisterial work on the causes and consequences of crises stretching back 800 years."---Matthew Valencia, Economist.com
"I couldn't put it down until I had gone all the way through it, and then I immediately ordered it as an assigned text for my Spring 2010 MBA course, 'The Development of Financial Institutions and Markets.' My students are finding it useful and engaging."---Richard Sylla, EH.Net
"Easily the most useful, and arguably the best, is this splendid piece of research and analysis on, as the subtitle says, 800 years' worth of booms and busts."---Bill Emmott, Survival
"This Time Is Different changes the way we can study financial crises. It is the start of a truly comprehensive approach to the subject. . . . It adds new ideas that will be useful for gauging the risk of future crises and perhaps even reducing their impact, if investors and policymakers are willing to learn from other people's mistakes, not just their own mistakes."---Kurt Schuler, CATO Journal
"[T]he book will be essential reading for anyone who wants to put the recent crisis into some historical perspective--and get some ideas on how to prevent, or at least delay, the next one."---David Orrell, Foresight
"It's the only book I have seen that provides, with great detail and over 800 years, clearly defined, analytical, data-driven evidence of what the impact of a post-financial crisis period is and hence what we can anticipate. . . . I've never seen anything that comes close in terms of being comprehensive. It's a tour de force."---Dambisa Moyo, The Browser
"[T]his Time is Different [is a] landmark work on financial crises."---Megan McArdle, TheAtlantic.com
"Readable, shocking, and vital, this is a book that every investor who has been tempted by a hefty interest rate in a faraway land should study."---Andrew Allentuck, National Post
"[This Time is Different] is perhaps the finest study of financial crises ever published."---Ezra Klein, Washington Post
"[A] modern classic. . . . In their landmark study of hundreds of financial crises in 66 countries over 800 years, Reinhart and Rogoff find oft-repeated patterns that ought to alert economists when trouble is on the way. One thing stops them waking up in time: their perpetual belief that 'this time is different.'"---Ross Gittins, Sydney Morning Herald
"[S]eminal."---Rana Faroohar and Bill Saporito, Time
"[T]he pre-eminent history of financial crises."---Adam Davidson, New York Times Magazine
"The book by Reinhart and Rogoff is one for the ages, and it will be remembered as a landmark event, not least given the coincidence of its publication of such a deep and broad historical analysis of economic crises with the very moment when the world was entering a massive 'hundred year flood' type of calamity. The authors' empirical work is encyclopedic and much of the data are highly original and the result of intense effort. The necessary theoretical framing is provided, but in terms that all target readers should be able to absorb. The overall view is panoramic and the message carried is an important one for all to hear--policymakers, commentators, and researchers. Crises are still with us, they are very painful indeed, and perhaps it will always be so. It is up to us to figure out why and how crises happen, and to figure out what, if anything, can and should be done to mitigate their devastating effects in future. This book is therefore, above all, a call to action." ― Journal of Economic Literature
"[E]conomists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff take a much-needed longer view, placing the current crisis, with a focus on the U.S. housing bubble, into historical perspective."---Anil Hira, Perspectives on Politics
"Reinhart and Rogoff's book belongs to the tradition of studies that appear in the middle of a crisis but it manages to keep its spine above water because of its historical depth and systematic rigour."---Sakis Gekas, Dublin Review of Books
Review
"This is quite simply the best empirical investigation of financial crises ever published. Covering hundreds of years and bringing together a dizzying array of data, Reinhart and Rogoff have made a truly heroic contribution to financial history. This single marvelous volume is worth a thousand mathematical models."―Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
"This Time is Different is terrific, for it gives just the perspective we need on the current world economic crisis. People can't expect to understand the current crisis without some in-depth look at past crises. That is exactly what this excellent and timely book provides."―Robert J. Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance and coauthor of Animal Spirits
"You will be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive and insightful analysis of financial crises. Reinhart and Rogoff's superb book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand past and present crises, as well as navigate those of tomorrow."―Mohamed El-Erian, author of When Markets Collide
"I would say that her [Carmen Reinhart's] book with Ken Rogoff on debt crises and financial crises is an extraordinary piece of work."―Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, speaking before the House Budget Committee (6/9/2010)
"The most important authorities probably in the world now on financial crashes are Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart. . . . And I read it [This Time is Different]."―Former President Bill Clinton, speech at Youngstown, OH, October 31, 2012
"A classic."―Nouriel Roubini
From the Back Cover
"This Time Is Different is a tremendously exciting, topical, and controversial book on the history of debt and default. This one belongs on everyone's shelf."--Barry Eichengreen, author of The European Economy since 1945
"This is quite simply the best empirical investigation of financial crises ever published. Covering hundreds of years and bringing together a dizzying array of data, Reinhart and Rogoff have made a truly heroic contribution to financial history. This single marvelous volume is worth a thousand mathematical models."--Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
"This Time is Different is terrific, for it gives just the perspective we need on the current world economic crisis. People can't expect to understand the current crisis without some in-depth look at past crises. That is exactly what this excellent and timely book provides."--Robert J. Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance and coauthor of Animal Spirits
"You will be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive and insightful analysis of financial crises. Reinhart and Rogoff's superb book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand past and present crises, as well as navigate those of tomorrow."--Mohamed El-Erian, author of When Markets Collide
"I would say that her [Carmen Reinhart's] book with Ken Rogoff on debt crises and financial crises is an extraordinary piece of work."--Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, speaking before the House Budget Committee (6/9/2010)
"The most important authorities probably in the world now on financial crashes are Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart. . . . And I read it [This Time is Different]."--Former President Bill Clinton, speech at Youngstown, OH, October 31, 2012
"A classic."--Nouriel Roubini
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Princeton University Press; Reprint edition (August 7, 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 512 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0691152640
- ISBN-13 : 978-0691152646
- Item Weight : 1 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.47 x 1.4 x 8.54 inches
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Best Sellers Rank:
#110,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #85 in Microeconomics (Books)
- #332 in Economic History (Books)
- #874 in Finance (Books)
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Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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As it was, I still thought it was an interesting book and the main takeaway is that -- given the cyclical nature of financial history -- we're going to see some large crises soon. The book made it abundantly clear that the period of relative calm we've been enjoying recently is not a "normal" state of affairs. Interesting times are ahead ...
Other points of note was the relative importance of domestic debt when predicting external defaults, and how crises tend to occur in clusters. Also the difficulties faced by certain countries attempting to "graduate" from never-ending crises to something resembling greater stability.
Anyway, an interesting read but the style could have been far more readable.
The hard part of this book is digesting the many pages of graphs and statistics that the authors have published to illustrate the reasons behind their premise. Patience enough to stick with this book is not in me. I am assuming that readers exist who can read every page and understand the content without difficulty. For that reason I have split the difference when awarding three stars to my review.
Table A.4.1 which runs from pg. 348 to 392, or from Albania to Zimbabwe, is clear even though long. It is under the heading "Appendix A.4(,) Historical Summaries Of Banking Crises."
The book has a long section including subsections of Appendices, References, Notes and Index.
This book was written before their deification by pro-austerity, less-compassionate politicians. This book lays out the data and the small empirically based “aha's”, which investors can use to practical results. And their successful effort in this book is enormous, teasing out reliable historical data, never found before, especially from the Third World. Never underestimate the power of details. I admire this book completely for its precision. And the conclusion I can draw: Caveat Emptor. The future rhymes with the past. Do not confuse causation and correlation.
Top reviews from other countries
In creating this relatively short but gigantically impressive and influential (while some possibly have not read it, many nevertheless have) work the authors have dug deep into what archives they have been able to delve. At times the charts are so numerous the text has a job keeping up. The tables, too, are frequent, informative and, often, frightening. But they underline the herculean task involved in prising the data out of some hands, and make a case for a centralised clearing house for making such data transparent, rather than the current opacity and obfuscation.
The central point, of course, is that the fundamental tenets of economics do not change. You can't spend what you'll never have and get away with it. There's a price to pay, always, as the world economy, and especially the increasingly pauperised south Europeans are now finding. This time, and any other time you care to mention, really is not different. The dotcom boom was replete with spotty youths accusing the oldsters that they didn't "get it", all too often hounding them out of the boardroom so they could observe at a distance as their dire predictions came true. Ditto with the armies of derivatives sellers explaining how their CDOs, CDSs and their like would completely diversify risk away. Instead, they were the root of the problem as the subprime deck of cards came tumbling down, leading to the discovery that much of the risk had been diversified away to the same place.
Perhaps of most pressing interest is the coverage received by Greece, including the disclosure that since independence in 1820 the country has spent over half the time in default, and looks like continuing that illustrious achievement for a few more years still. But the authors use the example of Argentina in 2001-2 to demonstrate the perils awaiting should Greece leave the eurozone, a sentiment echoed by, amongst others, former central-bank governors of Argentina and Mexico (The Economist, February 18th 2012), who remind us of the chaos following the abandonment of Argentina's peg to the dollar and point out that, given the deep integration of Greece with the rest of Europe, the result of the country abandoning the euro would be many times worse.
We have, say Reinhart and Rogoff, learnt a lot about the way the world economy works since the Great Depression. But we have much left to learn, and besides, the world is constantly in a state of change and the learning process never ends. Their book is a valuable part of that learning process.
The information on banking crises being the worst of all possible crises, and that ratings agencies are poor predictors of these events was very enlightening.
So why does't it merit the full 5 stars?
The authors analyse recessions, and mention for example it means a loss of tax revenue. They completely omit that increase in government spending is usually a couple of multiples higher than loss of tax revenue. The authors also after-time in their definitions. This is to be expected, as you define the indicators of a problem after the sequence of events resulting from the problem has been revealed. But it's still after-timing nonetheless.
This matters in a sense as many economists are now saying that across the spectrum of modern advanced economies an experiment is being conducted to see if 'austerity' is the solution or part of the problem. Naturally these same economists will give it another 15 years or so before defining their terms as to what austerity on the part of a government actually means, and then fit the definition to predict the outcome. This is not the scientific method, that is for sure.
As the authors went to great trouble to define their 5 crisis events, I think they missed an opportunity for a genuinely superb opus which is of future relevance by failing to define 'austerity' and omitting crises of excessive government spending. They did labour the 'This time is different' point excessively too.
They've written something of historical relevance, that has to be admitted, and many ideas are suggested.
The book analyses domestic debt; data that has apparently been unavailable previously, as governments are not that willing to reveal how much they have borrowed historically. Indeed, the authors make it clear that there is obfuscation going on here, as with modern technology, this data should be readily available. Nevertheless, they have tacked bits of domestic internal debt data together in order to aid the analysis.
Future generations will look back at our present financial easing and wonder what the hell we were thinking, trying to dig ourselves out of a financial crisis (bought on by real estate lending), by trying to further stimulate the real estate market. All the more so given analysis which is now readily available, such as in this book.
One extension which I would like to see would be to include implicit debt, such as historic promises of state benefits, in order to draw further conclusions about our current financial situation. In the UK, we have the NHS and public sector pensions to finance. In the US, there is the medicare bill. It would be interesting to have seen the impact of these implicit debts being quantified in This Time is Different.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book. It's not a light bedtime read but is accessible and more than readable, and more's the point, you can dip in to whatever chapter is relevant for your enquiry. There are swathes of tables and reference charts, and the later chapters deal with the current crisis - which we learn is not new (though the debt mountain is the greatest on record).
I would suggest it helps to have a modicum of understanding of world finance, this is not a book for beginners (for that go to "Conspiracy of the Rich" by Robert Kiyosaki - possibly the best there is to really get inside what's going on in the world of finance and highly readable), but for those already engaged in this area, "This Time is Different" is essential.






