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标题：Reinhart, Carmen M. and Rogoff, Kenneth (2009) This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton University Press
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作者：Stephen Buckles
期刊名称：International Review of Economics Education
印刷版ISSN：1477-3880
出版年度：2011
卷号：10
期号：1
出版社：Economics LTSN
摘要：Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have put together a fascinating tour of world financial historyover the past eight centuries. The contribution of the work is to place a variety of financial crises inperspective. The text is completely convincing that financial cycles are normal and to be expected.The work is one‐fourth data appendices and a variety of brief summaries of past financial crises. Thosedata and crises descriptions provide researchers, paper writers and teachers with a wide variety ofsource material, examples and references.The theme is met early on when the writers state and then eventually show that ‘all the red lights wereblinking in the run‐up’ to the current crisis, but were ignored due to widespread assumptions that thistime is different. They demonstrate convincingly that ‘this time is different’ is a common theme andassumption among financial institutions, investors, economists and policy makers.Reinhart and Rogoff divide their work into discussions of sovereign defaults, both domestic and foreign,exchange rate crises, inflation crises and banking crises. The financial crisis of the late 2000s is only thelatest manifestation of the theme. Their clear explanations of shared causes and common traits of all ofthe types of crises make it much easier for a researcher, writer or teacher to understand thecommonality. If you ever catch yourself thinking or saying that this time is different, pick up this bookagain. Look through the summary tables. You will quickly remember how common that thought hasbeen, and how foolish the thought is and will continue to be.