This myth shattering book reveals the methods Nouriel Roubini used to foretell
the current crisis before other economists saw it coming and shows how those methods can
help us make sense of the present and prepare for the future.
Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini electrified his profession and the larger financial
community by predicting the current crisis well in advance of anyone else. Unlike most in
his profession who treat economic disasters as freakish once-ina-lifetime events without
clear cause, Roubini, after decades of careful research around the world, realized that
they were both probable and predictable. Armed with an unconventional blend of historical
analysis and global economics, Roubini has forced politicians, policy makers, investors,
and market watchers to face a long-neglected truth: financial systems are inherently
fragile and prone to collapse.
Drawing on the parallels from many countries and centuries, Nouriel Roubini and
Stephen Mihm, a professor of economic history and a New York Times Magazine writer, show
that financial cataclysms are as old and as ubiquitous as capitalism itself. The last two
decades alone have witnessed comparable crises in countries as diverse as Mexico,
Thailand, Brazil, Pakistan, and Argentina. All of these crises-not to mention the more
sweeping cataclysms such as the Great Depression-have much in common with the current
downturn. Bringing lessons of earlier episodes to bear on our present predicament, Roubini
and Mihm show how we can recognize and grapple with the inherent instability of the global
financial system, understand its pressure points, learn from previous episodes of
"irrational exuberance," pinpoint the course of global contagion, and plan for
our immediate future. Perhaps most important, the authors-considering theories,
statistics, and mathematical models with the skepticism that recent history warrants-
explain how the world's economy can get out of the mess we're in, and stay out.
In Roubini's shadow, economists and investors are increasingly realizing that they can
no longer afford to consider crises the black swans of financial history. A vital and
timeless book, Crisis Economics proves calamities to be not only predictable but also
preventable and, with the right medicine, curable.
Nouriel Roubini is a professor of economics at New York University's Stern
School of Business. He has extensive senior policy experience in the federal government,
having served from 1998 to 2000 in the White House and the U.S. Treasury. He is the
founder and chairman of Roubini Global Economics (www.roubini.com), an economic and
financial research firm, regularly attends and presents his views at the World Economic
Forum at Davos and other international forums, and is an adviser to central bankers around
the world.
Stephen Mihm writes on economic and historical topics for The New York Times
Magazine, The Boston Globe, and other publications. The recipient of numerous fellowships,
he was the Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business History at Harvard Business School
from 2003 to 2004. He is currently an associate professor of history at the University of
Georgia, where he teaches courses on American political, cultural, and economic history.
368 pages, Hardcover