IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jeclit/v50y2012i1p151-78.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reading about the Financial Crisis: A Twenty-One-Book Review

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew W. Lo

Abstract

The recent financial crisis has generated many distinct perspectives from various quarters. In this article, I review a diverse set of twenty-one books on the crisis, eleven written by academics, and ten written by journalists and one former Treasury Secretary. No single narrative emerges from this broad and often contradictory collection of interpretations, but the sheer variety of conclusions is informative, and underscores the desperate need for the economics profession to establish a single set of facts from which more accurate inferences and narratives can be constructed. (JEL E32, E44, E52, G01, G21, G28)

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew W. Lo, 2012. "Reading about the Financial Crisis: A Twenty-One-Book Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 151-178, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:50:y:2012:i:1:p:151-78
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.50.1.151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jel.50.1.151
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2014. "This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 15(2), pages 215-268, November.
    2. Tobias Adrian & Adam B. Ashcraft & Hayley Boesky & Zoltan Pozsar, 2013. "Shadow banking," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Dec, pages 1-16.
      • Tobias Adrian & Adam B. Ashcraft & Hayley Boesky & Zoltan Pozsar, 2010. "Shadow banking," Staff Reports 458, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    3. George A. Akerlof, 2009. "How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1175-1175.
    4. Gorton, Gary B., 2010. "Slapped by the Invisible Hand: The Panic of 2007," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199734153.
    5. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    6. Andrew W. Lo & Mark T. Mueller, 2010. "WARNING: Physics Envy May Be Hazardous To Your Wealth!," Papers 1003.2688, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2010.
    7. Kenneth R. French & Martin N. Baily & John Y. Campbell & John H. Cochrane & Douglas W. Diamond & Darrell Duffie & Anil K Kashyap & Frederic S. Mishkin & Raghuram G. Rajan & David S. Scharfstein & Robe, 2010. "The Squam Lake Report: Fixing the Financial System," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9261.
    8. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    9. Raghuram G. Rajan, 2010. "Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9111.
    10. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    11. Viral V. Acharya & Matthew Richardson & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Lawrence J. White, 2011. "Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9400.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roy, Saktinil & Kemme, David M., 2012. "Causes of banking crises: Deregulation, credit booms and asset bubbles, then and now," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 270-294.
    2. Thomas Willett, 2010. "Some lessons for economists from the financial crisis," Indian Growth and Development Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 3(2), pages 186-208, September.
    3. Roy, Saktinil & Kemme, David M., 2020. "The run-up to the global financial crisis: A longer historical view of financial liberalization, capital inflows, and asset bubbles," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    4. Marco Pagano, 2014. "Dealing with Financial Crises: How Much Help from Research?," CSEF Working Papers 361, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    5. Thomas D. Willett, 2012. "The role of defective mental models in generating the global financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 4(1), pages 41-57, April.
    6. Michael G. Jacobides, 2015. "What drove the financial crisis? Structuring our historical understanding of a predictable evolutionary disaster," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(5), pages 716-735, July.
    7. Carles Manera, 2016. "A systemic crisis in the context of globalization: the Great Recession in the perspective of economic history, 1970-2008," DEA Working Papers 77, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Departament d'Economía Aplicada.
    8. Bholat, David & Gray, Joanna, 2013. "Organizational form as a source of systemic risk," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 7, pages 1-35.
    9. Jihad Dagher, 2018. "Regulatory Cycles: Revisiting the Political Economy of Financial Crises," IMF Working Papers 2018/008, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Giampaolo Gabbi & Alesia Kalbaska & Alessandro Vercelli, 2014. "Factors generating and transmitting the financial crisis: The role of incentives: securitization and contagion," Working papers wpaper56, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    11. Gennaioli, Nicola & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 2012. "Neglected risks, financial innovation, and financial fragility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 452-468.
    12. Gregory Waymire & Sudipta Basu, 2011. "Economic crisis and accounting evolution," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(3), pages 207-232, August.
    13. Varma, Jayanth R., 2011. "Finance Teaching and Research after the Global Financial Crisis," IIMA Working Papers WP2011-03-02, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    14. Ricardo Crespo & Daniel Heymann & Pablo Schiaffino, 2015. "Dealing with uncertainty evolving beliefs, rationalizations & the origins of economic crises," Documentos de trabajo del Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política IIEP (UBA-CONICET) 2015-8, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política IIEP (UBA-CONICET).
    15. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    16. D. M. Nachane, 2016. "Global Crisis, Regulatory Reform and International Policy Coordination," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 5(1), pages 63-95, June.
    17. Viral V. Acharya & Matthew Richardson, 2012. "Implications of the Dodd-Frank Act," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 1-38, October.
    18. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2011. "Monetary Policy Strategy: Lessons from the Crisis," NBER Working Papers 16755, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Cukierman, Alex & Izhakian, Yehuda, 2015. "Bailout uncertainty in a microfounded general equilibrium model of the financial system," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 160-179.
    20. Takeo Hoshi, 2011. "Financial Regulation: Lessons from the Recent Financial Crises," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 120-128, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:50:y:2012:i:1:p:151-78. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.