The New Financial Order
This cogent and substantial new book presents a new vision for hedging risk and securing our economic future. Legendary economist Robert Shiller accounts six fundamental ideas for using advanced financial theory and modern information technology to moderate basic risks that have been shunned by risk management institutions — risks to the value of our jobs and our homes, to the vitality of our communities, and to the very stability of national economies. Once again imparting a great service, Shiller gives us sturdy means to transform ordinary riches into a level of economic security, equity, and growth like never before.
"Co-Winner of the 2005 Kulp-Wright Book Award, American Risk and Insurance Association, Inc."
"Winner of the 2003 Business Book Award, Financial Times Germany/getAbstract"
"Winner of the 2004 Wilmott Book Of The Year Award for General Finance"
"Honorable Mention for the 2003 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Economics, Association of American Publishers"
"Shiller's ambition is exhilarating, and gives his work something that most business books lack; a deep sense of how economic ideas might transform people's everyday lives."
"The New Financial Order [is] . . . easily accessible and pleasantly utopian."
— Washington Post
"Certain to be controversial."
— Publishers Weekly
"It is an understatement to say Shiller's book raises complex political, legal and economic questions. Some will probably never happen. But The New Financial Order is still worth a look. It casts some long-standing social problems in a new light, and it puts some fascinating ideas on the table."
— Andrew Cassel, Philadelphia Inquirer
"While [his] ideas may sound unfamiliar--even radical--Shiller's reasoned case recalls earlier financial innovations such as stock and futures markets, life and unemployment insurance, and earned income tax credits. The earlier innovations addressed the financial and risk management needs of individuals and societies in the same way Shiller proposes for his concepts."
— Library Journal
"Robert Shiller has the remarkable ability to think independently and the courage to propose ideas that to middlebrow thinkers may sound speculative. Think of what your reaction would have been had someone discussed risksharing (insurance) before it became popular. . . . Throughout his career Shiller has stood for unpopular ideas and has been proven right (his 1981 paper on volatility, his 2000 discussion of the bubble). I would read and re-read this book."
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life
"Shiller has proved even bolder than we thought. . . . His ambitions are global and systemic. Shiller wants nothing less than to inspire and guide the redesign of the world financial system. The New Financial Order is ... a step-by-step description of what should be done to limit the damage done to people, and even entire nations, by capitalism's creative destruction."
— Peter Coy, Business Week
"Bob Shiller has done it again. In The New Financial Order, he tells how innovations in risk management can better the lives not just of the rich, but of the poor and the middle class, insuring against the most serious risks that face us all. There is something for everyone in this brilliant book. It foretells where financial markets are headed in the coming century."
— George A. Akerlof, Goldman Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, and Nobel Laureate in Economics
"As the worldly philosophers of the past affirmed, the goal of economics is to improve the way society functions. In The New Financial Order, Robert Shiller joins this proud tradition by directing his brilliant economic skills toward the creation of financial institutions designed to reduce the risks an unknown future visits on most members of our society and others. Shiller's imaginative and compelling analysis will appeal to all readers who share his passion for initiating not only a richer, but a better, century."
— Peter L. Bernstein, author of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk
"Robert Shiller's book, The New Financial Order, is an important work on a significant topic."
— Joseph E. Stiglitz, author of Globalization and its Discontents, and Nobel Laureate in Economics
"This is one of those rare books that really captures the imagination by offering fresh ideas, that makes you think and at the same time is rigorous and serious. It's hard to exaggerate how unusual and exciting this is to a reader. One of the book's real joys is the way it captures the passion of economics for making people's lives better."
— Diane Coyle, author of The Weightless World and Sex, Drugs, and Economics
"Shiller is a real visionary, and this book will be widely read and discussed. It suggests a remedy for a situation begging to be remedied: we live in an age of great material wealth, but equally great economic insecurity."
— Herbert Gintis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the Santa Fe Institute