Reviews

Shiller (economics, Yale Univ.) has updated his landmark 2000 study of U.S. stock market psychology. In that work, he amassed research from market peaks in 1929 and 1966 to warn that the same factors were present in the 2000 market. He further explained that past bull markets fed upon themselves to go beyond what the facts justified and that the 2000 market was a speculative bubble awaiting correction. In the new edition, Shiller builds on his original research by including 2000 as a third major peak.The second edition's new component, then, is Shiller's exploration of how market psychology has responded to the ensuing five years of retrenchment. One chilling conclusion he reaches from his knowledge of past market performance is that the 2005 market may still be correcting and that a return to 2000 levels may be a decade away. He further warns that many investors are still too heavily invested in equities and that proposals to invest Social Security funds in the stock market would subject the retirement system to unacceptable risk. Shiller expands his focus to include the booming real estate market, where he sees another speculative bubble building. Shiller's lucid work is essential for all academic and public libraries.-Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ., Erie, PA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

"Robert Shiller has done more than any other economist of his generation to document the less rational aspects of financial markets." -- Paul Krugman

"A modern classic of 'serious' economics that demands to be read, and can be enjoyed, by the interested nonspecialist." -"The Economist"

"A dose of realism that serious investors will ignore at their peril." --"The Wall Street Journal"

"The point of "Irrational Exuberance" is not to help investors dump their houses before the current exuberance fades. It is to deepen our understanding of the events we are watching as one bubble gives birth to another." --"The International Herald Tribune"

""Irrational Exuberance" [is] a dazzling, richly textured, provocative book . . . offering a cogent statement of the bears' view of events to come. Shiller is not merely a bear--he is a grizzly." --"BusinessWeek
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