Introduction -- The legacy of Napoleon: embargo, war, and peace -- Three revolutions: market, transportation, corporation -- Volcano weather -- Alabama fever: "I must go West and plant" -- Bank expansion: "frothy bubbles" -- Bank contraction: "the axe must be applied to the root of the evil" --...

Aronoff challenges the conventional view that reckless credit produced the US housing boom and the financial crisis, explaining how the large current account deficit, and its mercantilist origin, was a more fundamental cause

This volume investigates different aspects of monetary policy and prevention of financial crises. It discusses some recently suggested measures for central banks' responses to liquidity shortages and to the liquidity trap, methods for assessing the potential of crisis contagion via the interbank...