Since 1987, financial crises have become a dangerous menace not only to economic activity, but also to systems of retirement funding. And in the past few years, a new international crisis has been brewing: in Mexico, in Russia, in Asia, and in Brazil. And what about the future ? In the United States and Europe, what sort of crisis can we expect from the “millenium bug” ? Many financial analysts are wondering.
Orléan offers the keys to understanding how all these crises in finance and economics first developed. He also explains what speculation really means, and how it could be catastrophic for the financial world, though it may be completely rational at an individual level.
André Orléan is research director of the CNRS and a member of the CREA.