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christinefongg's review against another edition
3.0
There are a lot of good ideas in this book, but even as someone in finance it was dry and hard to follow. My biggest takeaway was the concept of Money Illusion, and a couple of perspectives the author shared towards the second half of the book.
The book is split in two parts, the first half introduces the components of Animal Spirits and what it constitutes. The latter half is the author's approach to eight questions, "Why do Economies Fall into Depression", "Why Are There People Who Cannot Find a Job", and "Why Is Saving for the Future So Arbitrary?", to name a few. I enjoyed reading most of the ideas, especially the ones focused on real estate and poverty among minorities. It's given me a lot to think about.
My sister, who is not in the industry but interested in the markets, has asked me to leave this book for her after I finish and I intend to do so. However, as the person who willingly picked up an econ book, it's taken me over two months to finish because of its density. There is a decent amount of jargon and financial concepts (Basel I,II/random walk, etc) and I found myself rereading throughout. I'd recommend this to a finance/econ professional but perhaps not to Jane Doe in an unrelated industry exploring her interests in econ - this might scare her away (and quite frankly can find more digestible ways to consume economic concepts).
3.5 stars
The book is split in two parts, the first half introduces the components of Animal Spirits and what it constitutes. The latter half is the author's approach to eight questions, "Why do Economies Fall into Depression", "Why Are There People Who Cannot Find a Job", and "Why Is Saving for the Future So Arbitrary?", to name a few. I enjoyed reading most of the ideas, especially the ones focused on real estate and poverty among minorities. It's given me a lot to think about.
My sister, who is not in the industry but interested in the markets, has asked me to leave this book for her after I finish and I intend to do so. However, as the person who willingly picked up an econ book, it's taken me over two months to finish because of its density. There is a decent amount of jargon and financial concepts (Basel I,II/random walk, etc) and I found myself rereading throughout. I'd recommend this to a finance/econ professional but perhaps not to Jane Doe in an unrelated industry exploring her interests in econ - this might scare her away (and quite frankly can find more digestible ways to consume economic concepts).
3.5 stars
ivaska's review against another edition
4.0
Brilliant book which will give you an idea how the economy have got into the crises and offers and insider's view to underlying reasons and possible outcomes.
tl71's review against another edition
Didn't finish reading it. Too tedious because of the jargon and assumed knowledge. But I could tell it was a good book!
matthew_p's review against another edition
4.0
Mildly dense, but fairly accessible explication of how standard macroeconomic theory can't explain the actual market behavior that's driving our current business cycle. I recommend.
daaan's review against another edition
3.0
Overall, this was good, though imperfect. The opening section on the psychology they equate with Animal Spirits was a little dull, though partly this is because I’ve read books that explain the subject more thoroughly and accessibly, making this reiteration laborious. The second half is much better, though I think it overstates its case. The book also suffers from being written in the teeth of the financial crisis, so its triumphalist claims to understand its exact causes are a little hubristic. I’d argue on the psychology side that it is missing a few key explanatory factors, loss aversion, optimism bias, acclimatisation. On the economics side, it lacks awareness of Richard Koo’s concept of the balance sheet recession and a more nuanced understanding of complexity economics, non-linearity and the disequilibrium they imply. Still the book serves as a valuable brick in the wall of modern economics, I’m just not sure it’s load bearing.
davidsteinsaltz's review
4.0
Part of trying to educate myself about economics and finance. Engagingly written, full of sharp insights. I suspect -- more than suspect, really -- that their disturbing portrayal of the state of economic thinking today (outside their domain of behavioural economics) is a bit of a straw man.
ivaska's review
4.0
Brilliant book which will give you an idea how the economy have got into the crises and offers and insider's view to underlying reasons and possible outcomes.
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