Financial crises and recession in the global economy

Explaining the rise and fall of economies in Asia, Central America and Europe, this book explains major financial instabilities and trends across the global economy since the 1970s, including the crisis that began in 2008 and the long boom that preceded it.

The author expands our understanding of the most recent crisis using evolutionary and complex systems approaches, particularly ones that privilege the role of interactive knowledge and belief systems. Various large-scale economic crises are shown to be driven more by psychological and social constructs than is commonly understood. In both boom and bust, financial markets absorb money away from GDP uses; capital and wealth can be created, transferred, and destroyed across time and space more powerfully and independently of GDP processes than is commonly understood. The author also advances our understanding of the free-trade versus mercantilism debate by showing that the US economy has benefited from what he calls 'money-mercantilism' at the expense of other regions of the world. -- Back cover.