Gorton: “Misunderstanding Financial Crises”

Via Marginal Revolution, a new book by Gary Gorton is on its way.  Gorton’s work has been incredibly important in understanding financial crises and I look forward to the new one:

Misunderstanding Financial Crises offers a back-to-basics overview of financial crises, and shows that they are not rare, idiosyncratic events caused by a perfect storm of unconnected factors. Gorton shows how financial crises are, indeed, inherent to our financial system. Economists, Gorton writes, looked from a certain point of view and missed everything that was important: the evolution of capital markets and the banking system, the existence of new financial instruments, and the size of certain money markets like the sale and repurchase market. Comparing the so-called “Quiet Period” of 1934 to 2007, when there were no systemic crises, to the “Panic of 2007-2008,” Gorton ties together key issues like bank debt and liquidity, credit booms and manias, moral hazard, and too-big-too-fail–all to illustrate the true causes of financial collapse.

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