Manias, Panics, and Crashes

Robert Z. Aliber is Professor Emeritus of International Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, USA. He was director of the Center for Studies in International Finance; on the research staff for the Committee for Economic Development and Commission on Money and Credit; and senior economic advisor for the Agency for Economic Development, U.S. Department of State. Best-selling publications include The Reconstruction of International Monetary Arrangements (ed., Macmillan, 1986), The Handbook of International Financial Management (ed. Dow Jones Irwin, 1989), and Global Portfolios (co-editor, Business One Irwin, 1991). He is a co-author of Money, Banking, and the Economy (Norton, First Edition, 1981, Fourth Edition 1990), Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Palgrave MacMillan, 5th ed. 2005, 6th ed. 2011), and author of The International Money Game (Palgrave MacMillan, 2001). Aliber has consulted to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and to other U.S. government agencies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, testified before committees of the Congress, and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad. The late Charles P. Kindleberger was the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT for 33 years and author of over 30 books. He was best known as a financial historian, whom the Economist referred to as 'the master of the genre' on financial crisis. He advanced the study of international finance and helped to devise the Marshall Plan, approved by Congress, for Europe's reconstruction after World War II. During his tenure at MIT, Kindleberger was a consultant to the federal government several times, most often for the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. In 1985, he was president of the American Economic Association. Select key publications by Kindleberger include: International Short-Term Capital Movements (Columbia University Press, 1937), The Dollar Shortage (New York: Wiley and MIT Press, 1950), International Economics (Richard D. Irwin, 1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, (and with Peter H. Lindert) 1978, 1982), Economic Development (McGraw-Hill, 1958, 1965, (and with Bruce Herrick) 1977, 1983), The World In Depression, 1929-1939 (University of California Press, 1973, revised and enlarged, 1986), and Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Palgrave Macmillan, 1978, revised and enlarged, 1989, 3rd ed. 1996, 4th ed. 1996), The Life of an Economist: An Autobiography (Basil Blackwell, 1991).

Foreword - Robert Solow Introduction 1. Financial Crises: a Hardy Perennial 2. The Anatomy of a Typical Crisis 3. Speculative Manias 4. Fueling the Flames: the Expansion of Credit 5. The Critical Stage - When the Bubble Is About To Pop 6. Euphoria and Paper Wealth 7. Bernie Madoff: Frauds, Swindles, and the Credit Cycle 8. International Contagion 1618-1930 9. Bubble Contagion: Mexico City to Tokyo to Bangkok to New York, London, and Reykjavik 10. Euromania and Eurocrash 11. Policy Responses: Benign Neglect, Exhortation, and Bank Holidays 12. The Domestic Lender of Last Resort 13. The International Lender of Last Resort 14. The Lehman Panic - An Avoidable Crash 15. The Lessons of History Epilogue Afterword - Lord Robert Skidelsky