Fortune Tellers (eBook)

The Story of America's First Economic Forecasters

Walter A Friedman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013
288 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4008-4986-4 (ISBN)

Infos

A gripping history of the pioneers who sought to use science to predict financial marketsThe period leading up to the Great Depression witnessed the rise of the economic forecasters, pioneers who sought to use the tools of science to predict the future, with the aim of profiting from their forecasts. This book chronicles the lives and careers of the men who defined this first wave of economic fortune tellers, men such as Roger Babson, Irving Fisher, John Moody, C. J. Bullock, and Warren Persons. They competed to sell their distinctive methods of prediction to investors and businesses, and thrived in the boom years that followed World War I. Yet, almost to a man, they failed to predict the devastating crash of 1929.Walter Friedman paints vivid portraits of entrepreneurs who shared a belief that the rational world of numbers and reason could tame--or at least foresee--the irrational gyrations of the market. Despite their failures, this first generation of economic forecasters helped to make the prediction of economic trends a central economic activity, and shed light on the mechanics of financial markets by providing a range of statistics and information about individual firms. They also raised questions that are still relevant today. What is science and what is merely guesswork in forecasting? What motivates people to buy forecasts? Does the act of forecasting set in motion unforeseen events that can counteract the forecast made?Masterful and compelling, Fortune Tellers highlights the risk and uncertainty that are inherent to capitalism itself.

Autor

Walter A. Friedman is a historian at Harvard Business School and the author of Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.11.2013
• Zusatzinfo: 28 halftones.
• Verlagsort: Princeton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre ► Ökonometrie
• Schlagworte: Advertising • American Economic Association • Annual report • Babson College • Bank • Barometer • Behavioral Economics • Business Cycle • business executive • business manager • Business Statistics • Calculation • Capitalism • Career • Central Bank • Commodity • Competition • consumer • Consumption (Economics) • Customer • Deposit account • Dow Jones Industrial Average • Econometrics • economic data • Economic equilibrium • economic forecasting • Economics • Economic Theory (journal) • economist • economy • Employment • Entrepreneurship • Equation of exchange • Eugenics • Evangeline Adams • Financial Crisis • Financial institution • Fiscal Policy • Forecasting • Harvard Business School • Harvard University • Herbert Hoover • income • industrial production • Interest Rate • Investment • investment advice • Investor • Irving Fisher • John Kenneth Galbraith • John Maynard Keynes • John Moody (financial analyst) • Joseph Schumpeter • J. P. Morgan • Keynesian Economics • Macroeconomics • Market trend • Mathematical economics • meteorology • Milton Friedman • Moody's Investors Service • National Bureau of Economic Research • Newsletter • newspaper • New York Stock Exchange • optimism • Political Economy • Prediction • price • price level • Publication • Publishing • purchasing power • Recession • Reputation • Roger Babson • salary • Scientist • Security (finance) • Share Price • Social Science • Speculation • Statistic • statistician • Stock Market • Stock market crash • Supply (economics) • Technical Analysis • The Economist • The New York Times • The Wall Street journal • Uncertainty • Unemployment • Wealth • Weather forecasting • William Stanley Jevons • Woodrow Wilson • Writing • Yale University • year
• ISBN-10: 1-4008-4986-1 / 1400849861
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4008-4986-4 / 9781400849864