ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most peculiar feature of a financial bubble – one that Charles Kindleberger's classic work Manias, Panics and Crashes draws particular attention to – is the inability of those trapped inside it to grasp the seriousness of their predicament. They know in principle that bubbles exist, and they know that the financial crashes that result from them are capable of destroying individuals' wealth and entire economies. Yet whenever and wherever a bubble begins to form, we're told that this time things are different, that there are sound reasons to continue to invest and to presume that prices will continue to rise steadily forever.
Kindleberger's achievement is to use the critical thinking skill of evaluation to examine this strange mindset and the arguments advanced in support of it. He harshly judges the acceptability of the reasons used to create such arguments, and highlights the issues of relevance and adequacy that give us every reason to doubt them. Kindleberger also uses his powers of reasoning to effect an unusual achievement – writing a work soundly rooted in economics that nonetheless engages and convinces a non-specialist audience of the correctness of his arguments.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section 1|22 pages
Influences
module 1|5 pages
The Author and the Historical Context
module 2|5 pages
Academic Context
module 3|6 pages
The Problem
module 4|5 pages
The Author’S Contribution
section 2|20 pages
Ideas
module 5|5 pages
Main Ideas
module 6|5 pages
Secondary Ideas
module 7|5 pages
Achievement
module 8|4 pages
Place in the Author’S Work
section 3|22 pages
Impact
module 9|5 pages
The First Responses
module 10|5 pages
The Evolving Debate
module 11|5 pages
Impact and Influence Today
module 12|6 pages
Where Next?