How Markets Fail, John Cassidy
How Markets Fail, John Cassidy
2 Rating(s)
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How Markets Fail
The Logic of Economic Calamities

Author: John Cassidy

Narrator: Geoffrey Howard

Unabridged: 13 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/17/2009

Synopsis

Behind the alarming financial headlines is a little-known story of bad ideas. For over fifty years, economists have been developing elegant theories of how markets work. What about when markets don’t work? What about when they lead to stock-market bubbles, glaring inequality, polluted rivers, real-estate crashes, and credit crunches?In How Markets Fail, Cassidy describes the influence “utopian economics” thinking that is blind to how real people act and that denies the ways an unregulated free market can produce disastrous unintended consequences. Oil-price spikes, CEO greed cycles, and boom-and-bust waves are the inevitable outcome of self-serving behavior in a modern market setting. Cassidy looks to the leading edge of economic theory, including behavioral economics, for a new, enlightening view of our volatile global economy.

About John Cassidy

John Cassidy is a journalist at the New Yorker and a contributor to the New York Review of Books. He is the author of Dot.con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. He lives in New York City.

About Geoffrey Howard

Geoffrey Howard (a.k.a. Ralph Cosham) (1936–2014) was a British journalist who changed careers to become a narrator and screen and stage actor. He performed in more than one hundred professional theatrical roles. His audiobook narrations were named “Audio Best of the Year” by Publishers Weekly, and he won seven AudioFile Earphones Awards, and in 2013 he won the coveted Audie Award for Best Mystery Narration for his reading of Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Rajesh on March 21, 2010

The 2007 and 2008 crisis in world economics and financial markets have spawned many books. This is one book that talks about the same crisis but perhaps in a much more insightful way than any other. Dwelling on the interplay between economic policies and financial markets this book is difficult to p......more

Goodreads review by Bart on March 09, 2010

This is another excellent addition to a library of very good books that came about after the official end of free-market capitalism on 9/18/08. The mathematics of economics are the most surprising part at the beginning of this book, and you get the sense that John Cassidy introduces them to show he's......more

Goodreads review by Stetson on May 12, 2022

How Markets Fail by John Cassidy (as many others here on GR have described) is roughly a two-part book, where the first portion provides a summary of the history of market economics and then dives into an analysis of the 2008 housing market crash/credit crunch. The animating argument for the work is......more

Goodreads review by Quang Hưng on April 23, 2020

A pleasant academic book to read. If there is a second name for this book, it will be how “free” markets fail. I particularly like the first two parts of the book. They effectively revise and summarize all of the key economic theories that we’ve learnt during university. Actually the content is more......more

Quotes

“Brilliant.” New York Times Book Review

“[How Markets Fail] brilliantly dissects much of what has passed for economic wisdom, and decries the lack of humility from those whose theories helped cause the disaster.” New York Times

“[How Markets Fail] is more than just an account of the failures of regulators and the self-deception of bankers and homebuyers, although these are well covered. For Mr. Cassidy, the deeper roots of the crisis lie in the enduring appeal of an idea: that society is always best served when individuals are left to pursue their self-interest in free markets...an ambitious book, and one that mostly succeeds.” Economist

“The last major attempt of 2009 to make sense of what has become of the discipline of economics.” Financial Times (Best Books of the Year)  

“Highly readable...Cassidy offers a clear and occasionally colorful exposition of the evolution of relevant economic thought in a way that is accessible to non-economists.” Foreign Affairs

“An ambitious, nuanced work that brings ideas alive...Cassidy makes a compelling case that a return to hands-off economics would be a disaster.” BusinessWeek

“An essential, grittily intellectual, yet compelling guide to the financial debacle of 2009.” London Evening Standard

“Fascinating and important.” Slate

“A well constructed, thoughtful, and cogent account of how capitalism evolved to its current form.” Daily Telegraph

“Market disasters—and the cycle of delusions responsible—receive lively, engaging analysis by Cassidy…Both a narrative and a call to arms, the book provides an intellectual and historical context for the string of denial and bad decisions that led to the disastrous ‘illusion of harmony,’ the lure of real estate and the Great Crunch of 2008. Using psychology and behavioral economics, Cassidy presents an excellent argument that the market is not in fact self-correcting, and that only a return to reality-based economics—and a reform-minded move to shove Wall Street in that direction—can pull us out of the mess in which we’ve found ourselves.” Publishers Weekly

Awards

  • Pulitzer Prize Finalist
  • Helen Bernstein Book Award
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