Irrational Exuberance

This book is concerned with the behavior of speculative markets, human vulnerability to error, and the instability of the capitalist system. It tries to comprehend the change in the thought processes of the people whose actions drive the markets. It is about how even the smartest people can make errors of human judgment - in both the real estate sectors and the stock market - thanks to overconfidence, ignorance of details and too much trust in the judgments of others. An update of the celebrated bestseller of the same name, this edition expounds on the argument that changing attitudes, irrational beliefs and foci of attention are extremely important factors in our economic lives because they cause so-called variations that have deeply-felt and wide-ranging effects. The author broadens the discussion to consider speculation in real estate as well as in the stock market. Investing in capital markets of any kind in today's economy is inherently unstable, because it is subject to the human influences captured in 'irrational exuberance' - a concept introduced and made famous by ex-American Federal Reserve Chairman Allan Greenspan to describe the behavior of stock-market investors.