Product Overview
Lars Tvede's story moves back in time to the Scottish gambler and financial genius, John Law, and then on to the distracted Adam Smith, the stockbroker Ricardo, the investment banker Thornton, the extrovert Schumpeter, the speculator Jay Gould and many others. Gradually we reach the computer jugglers of the modern day who, with giant networks of equations, try to solve the same questions that have attracted the attention of classical economists through the centuries.
Throughout this volume, business cycle theories are used to explain actual events, as they unfold for the reader. We are told how theoretical thinking has reflected the economists' own experiences of hyper-inflations, depressions, speculation orgies and liquidity squeezes. The reader can follow the narrative to discover how economists often thought that problems had been solved until new data changed the economic picture once again.
