Theories of Financial Disturbance

Jan Toporowski, Professor of Economics and Finance, SOAS University of London, UK, Visiting Professor of Economics and Finance, International University College, Turin, and Visiting Professor of Economics, University of Bergamo, Italy

• Contents: Introduction Part I: A Premonition of Financial Fragility 1. Adam Smith’s Economic Case Against Usury 2. The Vindication of Finance Part II: Critical Theories of Finance in the Twentieth Century: Unstable Money and Finance 3. Thorstein Veblen and Those ‘Captains of Finance’ 4. Rosa Luxemburg and the Marxist Subordination of Finance 5. Ralph Hawtrey and the Monetary Business Cycle 6. Irving Fisher and Debt Deflation 7. John Maynard Keynes’s Financial Theory of Under-Investment I: Towards Doubt 8. John Maynard Keynes’s Financial Theory of Under-Investment II: Towards Uncertainty Part III: Critical Theories of Finance in the Twentieth Century: In the Shadow of Keynes 9. The Principle of Increasing Risk I: Marek Breit 10. The Principle of Increasing Risk II: Michal Kalecki 11. The Principle of Increasing Risk III: Michal Kalecki and Josef Steindl on Profits and Finance 12. A Brief Digression on Later Developments in Economics and Finance 13. The East Coast Historians: John Kenneth Galbraith, Charles P. Kindleberger and Robert Shiller 14. Hyman P. Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis 15. Conclusion: The Disturbance of Economists by Finance Bibliography Index

'This book will be of interest to advanced students looking for an even-handed overview of alternative theories of financial disturbances; academics who need a reference on the historical interrelationships of the literature in the field; and professionals who want to understand how the tools and concepts they use daily have emerged through time - and whether there are forgotten lessons to be heeded.'