This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

By Carmen M Reinhart and Kenneth S Rogoff

Reviewed by Andrew Gamble - 30 December 2009

Credit where it’s due

The credit crunch of 2007 became the financial crash of 2008 and the recession of 2009. But there has been much debate about the scale of this crisis, and how it ranks against previous events. Reinhart and Rogoff have produced the most detailed study yet of financial crises, going back as far as 12th-century China. This is a quantitative and statistical analysis; it does not attempt to provide a historical narrative of crises, but rather seeks to lay bare their anatomy, by systematically assembling all the facts known about them. The authors construct a large database of historical crises, and the book is copiously illustrated with tables and charts. There are a hundred pages of data appendices alone.

This book will be a vital source of reference in debates on the causes and consequences of financial crises.