Explore the History of Financial Missteps: 'This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly'

Rodney van Royden: Really azppreciate the book and research. For five stars, I would have preferred a more objective perspective and unifying theme.

Plus would be interesting to see the post GFC update.

Australia on Oct 10, 2023

Alfred Feth: Uses real historical data that demonstrates very little as debt/GDP ratio exceeds 90%.

Canada on May 25, 2023

Cliente: The book is not that easy if you don’t understand well english, but if you do it is a superbe window on 8 centuries of finance.
It contains an insane amount of data, it is very professional and comparable with an academic article

Italy on Feb 02, 2020

Amazon Customer: Authors have done a phenomenal work in putting together the data that forms the backbone of the book. Especially the data on domestic debt across countries boing back to 1800 which is was quite fascinating. Great book to back up your knowledge with hard facts. Not for some one looking for an guilde to economic history

India on Oct 17, 2017

Amazon カスタマー: 内容が充実していてお勧めです。翻訳版と合わせて読むとなおさら良いです。

Japan on Dec 31, 2016

PomanFerrari: If you are an investor, you need to read this book: "This Time is Different"

The authors went through and captured data from around the world for the last 800 years to demonstrate that while financial crises are not identical, they do rhyme and have patterns that are recognizable. As someone with money on the sidelines because of all the shenanigans in the stock market (15 seconds front running, trade and cancel order in 65 microseconds), I am interested in how I should invest for my kids and retirement (if at all).

The portions of the book that stood out are:

(a) whenever banking crisis and housing bubble go hand in hand ("the twins") they tend to be very destructive as opposed to a pure stock bubble (e.g., internet bubble). See Table 10.8 at this [...]

On average, these crises last 3-6 years except for Japan, which is still ongoing for 19 years. Equity price collapses on average 56% over a duration of 3.5 years. Unemployment is usually deep and prolonged, increasing by 7% over a four year period. Output drops on average 9% over an average of 2 years.

(b) when the twins are synchronized, a sovereign debt crisis usually follows the twins. The...

United States on Jul 24, 2010

William Whipple III: Under ordinary circumstances, "This Time Is Different" would be of interest primarily to professional economists and students - but given the timing of its publication, smack dab in the middle of a financial crisis, the book has caught on with a wider audience.

Go to a forum about the recent (or current?) financial crisis, and someone will probably brandish a copy in the air as though to say, "I read it." And at a May 26, 2010 meeting of the Fiscal Commission, which has been charged with proposing fixes to the nation's fiscal woes after the November elections, testimony of Professor Reinhart plus her responses to questions took up a goodly share of the 2-1/2 hour televised session. Ergo, people who are more interested in policy issues than in quantitative economic data may want to read the book just to be "in the know."

In my case, the clincher was a personal recommendation from a friend who used to play chess with Professor Rogoff (but never managed to beat him).

The basic thrust is to summarize and draw conclusions about financial crises from reams of historical data - a very different tack from Niall Ferguson's qualitative survey in "The Ascent of Money: A...

United States on Jun 15, 2010