Shortlisted for the 2009 "Financial Times/ Goldman Sachs Business Book Of The Year" award, and ahead of the eventual winner in the online poll, this incisive book explores the role of human psychology in the global financial system and offers a radical new way to think about the economy. Priced competitively, this will be of great interest to anyone in business, or those who just want to understand how recent crises have occurred.

Preface to the Paperback Edition vii Preface xxi Acknowledgments xxvii Introduction 1 Part One: Animal Spirits ONE Confidence and Its Multipliers 11 TWO Fairness 19 THREE Corruption and Bad Faith 26 FOUR Money Illusion 41 FIVE Stories 51 Part Two: Eight Questions and Their Answers SIX Why Do Economies Fall into Depression? 59 SEVEN Why Do Central Bankers Have Power over the Economy (Insofar as They Do)? 74 POSTSCRIPT TO CHAPTER SEVEN The Current Financial Crisis: What Is to Be Done? 86 EIGHT Why Are There People Who Cannot Find a Job? 97 NINE Why Is There a Trade-off between Inflation and Unemployment in the Long Run? 107 TEN Why Is Saving for the Future So Arbitrary? 116 ELEVEN Why Are Financial Prices and Corporate Investments So Volatile? 131 TWELVE Why Do Real Estate Markets Go through Cycles? 149 THIRTEEN Why Is There Special Poverty among Minorities? 157 FOURTEEN Conclusion 167 Notes 177 References 199 Index 219

George A. Akerlof is the Daniel E. Koshland Sr. Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics. Robert J. Shiller is the best-selling author of Irrational Exuberance and The Subprime Solution (both Princeton). He is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University.

"There is barely a page of Animal Spirits without a fascinating fact or insight."--John Lanchester, New Yorker