A comprehensive look at international financial crises that puts more recent economic meltdowns into perspective
Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing—and recovering—their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different"—claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes—from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much—or how little—we have learned.
Using clear, sharp analysis and comprehensive data, Reinhart and Rogoff document that financial fallouts occur in clusters and strike with surprisingly consistent frequency, duration, and ferocity. They examine the patterns of currency crashes, high and hyperinflation, and government defaults on international and domestic debts—as well as the cycles in housing and equity prices, capital flows, unemployment, and government revenues around these crises. While countries do weather their financial storms, Reinhart and Rogoff prove that short memories make it all too easy for crises to recur.
An important book that will affect policy discussions for a long time to come, This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.
Carmen M. Reinhart is currently vice president and chief economist at the World Bank. She is the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System at the Harvard Kennedy School. Kenneth S. Rogoff is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and professor of economics at Harvard University. He is a frequent commentator for NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times.
Table of Contents
LIST OF TABLES xiii LIST OF FIGURES xvii LIST OF BOXES xxiii PREFACE xxv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxxvii PREAMBLE: SOME INITIAL INTUITIONS ON FINANCIAL FRAGILITY AND THE FICKLE NATURE OF CONFIDENCE xxxix
PART I: Financial Crises: An Operational Primer 1 Chapter 1: Varieties of Crises and Their Dates 3 Crises Defined by Quantitative Thresholds: Inflation, Currency Crashes, and Debasement 4 Crises Defined by Events: Banking Crises and External and Domestic Default 8 Other Key Concepts 14 Chapter 2: Debt Intolerance: The Genesis of Serial Default 21 Debt Thresholds 21 Measuring Vulnerability 25 Clubs and Regions 27 Reflections on Debt Intolerance 29 Chapter 3: A Global Database on Financial Crises with a Long-Term View 34 Prices, Exchange Rates, Currency Debasement, and Real GDP 35 Government Finances and National Accounts 39 Public Debt and Its Composition 40 Global Variables 43 Country Coverage 43
PART II: Sovereign External Debt Crises 49 Chapter 4: A Digression on the Theoretical Underpinnings of Debt Crises 51 Sovereign Lending 54 Illiquidity versus Insolvency 59 Partial Default and Rescheduling 61 Odious Debt 63 Domestic Public Debt 64 Conclusions 67 Chapter 5: Cycles of Sovereign Default on External Debt 68 Recurring Patterns 68 Default and Banking Crises 73 Default and Inflation 75 Global Factors and Cycles of Global External Default 77 The Duration of Default Episodes 81 Chapter 6: External Default through History 86 The Early History of Serial Default: Emerging Europe, 1300-1799 86 Capital Inflows and Default: An "Old World" Story 89 External Sovereign Default after 1800: A Global Picture 89
PART III: The Forgotten History of Domestic Debt and Default 101 Chapter 7: The Stylized Facts of Domestic Debt and Default 103 Domestic and External Debt 103 Maturity, Rates of Return, and Currency Composition 105 Episodes of Domestic Default 110 Some Caveats Regarding Domestic Debt 111 Chapter 8: Domestic Debt: The Missing Link Explaining External Default and High Inflation 119 Understanding the Debt Intolerance Puzzle 119 Domestic Debt on the Eve and in the Aftermath of External Default 123 The Literature on Inflation and the "Inflation Tax" 124 Defining the Tax Base: Domestic Debt or the Monetary Base? 125 The "Temptation to Inflate" Revisited 127 Chapter 9: Domestic and External Default: Which Is Worse? Who Is Senior? 128 Real GDP in the Run-up to and the Aftermath of Debt Defaults 129 Inflation in the Run-up to and the Aftermath of Debt Defaults 129 The Incidence of Default on Debts Owed to External and Domestic Creditors 133 Summary and Discussion of Selected Issues 136
PART IV: Banking Crises, Inflation, and Currency Crashes 139 Chapter 10: Banking Crises 141 A Preamble on the Theory of Banking Crises 143 Banking Crises: An Equal-Opportunity Menace 147 Banking Crises, Capital Mobility, and Financial Liberalization 155 Capital Flow Bonanzas, Credit Cycles, and Asset Prices 157 Overcapacity Bubbles in the Financial Industry? 162 The Fiscal Legacy of Financial Crises Revisited 162 Living with the Wreckage: Some Observations 171 Chapter 11: Default through Debasement: An "Old World Favorite" 174 Chapter 12: Inflation and Modern Currency Crashes 180 An Early History of Inflation Crises 181 Modern Inflation Crises: Regional Comparisons 182 Currency Crashes 189 The Aftermath of High Inflation and Currency Collapses 191 Undoing Domestic Dollarization 193
PART V: The U.S. Subprime Meltdown and the Second Great Contraction 199 Chapter 13: The U.S. Subprime Crisis: An International and Historical Comparison 203 A Global Historical View of the Subprime Crisis and Its Aftermath 204 The This-Time-Is-Different Syndrome and the Run-up to the Subprime Crisis 208 Risks Posed by Sustained U.S. Borrowing from the Rest of the World: The Debate before the Crisis 208 The Episodes of Postwar Bank-Centered Financial Crisis 215 A Comparison of the Subprime Crisis with Past Crises in Advanced Economies 216 Summary 221 Chapter 14: The Aftermath of Financial Crises 223 Historical Episodes Revisited 225 The Downturn after a Crisis: Depth and Duration 226 The Fiscal Legacy of Crises 231 Sovereign Risk 232 Comparisons with Experiences from the First Great Contraction in the 1930s 233 Concluding Remarks 238 Chapter 15: The International Dimensions of the Subprime Crisis: The Results of Contagion or Common Fundamentals? 240 Concepts of Contagion 241 Selected Earlier Episodes 241 Common Fundamentals and the Second Great Contraction 242 Are More Spillovers Under Way? 246 Chapter 16: Composite Measures of Financial Turmoil 248 Developing a Composite Index of Crises: The BCDI Index 249 Defining a Global Financial Crisis 260 The Sequencing of Crises: A Prototype 270 Summary 273
PART VI: What Have We Learned? 275 Chapter 17: Reflections on Early Warnings, Graduation, Policy Responses, and the Foibles of Human Nature 277 On Early Warnings of Crises 278 The Role of International Institutions 281 Graduation 283 Some Observations on Policy Responses 287 The Latest Version of the This-Time-Is-Different Syndrome 290
DATA APPENDIXES 293 A.1. Macroeconomic Time Series 295 A.2. Public Debt 327 A.3. Dates of Banking Crises 344 A.4. Historical Summaries of Banking Crises 348 NOTES 393 REFERENCES 409 NAME INDEX 435 SUBJECT INDEX 443
This Time Is Different is a tremendously exciting, topical, and controversial book on the history of debt and default. This one belongs on everyone's shelf. — Barry Eichengreen, author of "The European Economy since 1945"
Mohamed El-Erian
You will be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive and insightful analysis of financial crises. Reinhart and Rogoff's superb book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand past and present crises, as well as navigate those of tomorrow. — Mohamed El-Erian, author of "When Markets Collide"
From the Publisher
"This Time Is Different is a tremendously exciting, topical, and controversial book on the history of debt and default. This one belongs on everyone's shelf."—Barry Eichengreen, author of The European Economy since 1945"This is quite simply the best empirical investigation of financial crises ever published. Covering hundreds of years and bringing together a dizzying array of data, Reinhart and Rogoff have made a truly heroic contribution to financial history. This single marvelous volume is worth a thousand mathematical models."—Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World"This Time is Different is terrific, for it gives just the perspective we need on the current world economic crisis. People can't expect to understand the current crisis without some in-depth look at past crises. That is exactly what this excellent and timely book provides."—Robert J. Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance and coauthor of Animal Spirits"You will be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive and insightful analysis of financial crises. Reinhart and Rogoff's superb book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand past and present crises, as well as navigate those of tomorrow."—Mohamed El-Erian, author of When Markets Collide"I would say that her [Carmen Reinhart's] book with Ken Rogoff on debt crises and financial crises is an extraordinary piece of work."—Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, speaking before the House Budget Committee (6/9/2010)"The most important authorities probably in the world now on financial crashes are Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart. . . . And I read it [This Time is Different]."—Former President Bill Clinton, speech at Youngstown, OH, October 31, 2012"A classic."—Nouriel Roubini
Niall Ferguson
This is quite simply the best empirical investigation of financial crises ever published. Covering hundreds of years and bringing together a dizzying array of data, Reinhart and Rogoff have made a truly heroic contribution to financial history. This single marvelous volume is worth a thousand mathematical models. — Niall Ferguson, author of "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World"
Shiller
This Time is Different is terrific, for it gives just the perspective we need on the current world economic crisis. People can't expect to understand the current crisis without some in-depth look at past crises. That is exactly what this excellent and timely book provides. — Robert J. Shiller, author of "Irrational Exuberance" and coauthor of "Animal Spirits"
