Animal Spirits

Product Description

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 & Robert Shiller challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess & put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics & restore prosperity. Akerlof & 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 & despondence that led to the Great Depression & the changing psychology that accompanied recovery. Like Keynes Akerlof & Shiller know that managing these animal spirits requires the steady hand of government
- simply allowing markets to work wont 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 & the stories we tell ourselves about our economic fortunes
- & show how Reaganomics Thatcherism & 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 & learn how leaders can channel animal spirits
- the powerful forces of human psychology that are afoot in the world economy today. In a new preface they describe why our economic troubles may linger for some time
- unless we are prepared to take further decisive action."