CNBC, day trading, the Motley Fool, Silicon Investor--not since the 1920s has there been such an intense fascination with the U.S. stock market. For an increasing number of Americans, logging on to Yahoo! Finance is a habit more precious than that morning cup of joe (as thousands of SBUX and YHOO shareholders know too well). Yet while the market continues to go higher, many of us can't get Alan Greenspan's famous line out of our heads. In Irrational Exuberance, Yale economics professor Robert J. Shiller examines this public fascination with stocks and sees a combination of factors that have driven stocks higher, including the rise of the Internet, 401(k) plans, increased coverage by the popular media of financial news, overly optimistic cheerleading by analysts and other pundits, the decline of inflation, and the rise of the mutual fund industry. He writes: "Perceived long-term risk is down.... Emotions and heightened attention to the market create a desire to get into the game. Such is irrational exuberance today in the United States."

By history's yardstick, Shiller believes this market is grossly overvalued, and the factors that have conspired to create and amplify this event--the baby-boom effect, the public infatuation with the Internet, and media interest--will most certainly abate. He fears that too many individuals and institutions have come to view stocks as their only investment vehicle, and that investors should consider looking beyond stocks as a way to diversify and hedge against the inevitable downturn. This is a serious and well-researched book that should read like a Stephen King novel to anyone who has staked his or her future on the market's continued success. --Harry C. Edwards


From Library Journal
Taking his book's title and thesis from Alan Greenspan's 1996 description of investors, Shiller (economics, Yale Univ.) studies the current booming U.S. stock market in historical terms. His research into past U.S. and international markets indicates that during every speculative bubble there was always widespread consensus that high valuations were justified by each market's special circumstances. Every large market correction seemed to result from popular consensus rather than specific events or news. Shiller says that past bull and bear markets, though often based initially on sound fundamental reasoning, fed upon themselves to go beyond what the facts justified. He challenges the efficient market theory, demonstrating that markets cannot be explained historically by the movement of company earnings or dividends. He concludes that the current U.S. stock market is a speculative bubble awaiting correction. While the book certainly belongs in all academic business collections, public libraries should also purchase it as a counterweight to the plethora of get-rich-quick investment guides.-Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ., Erie, PA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Louis Uchitelle
No one has explored the strange behavior of the American investor in the 1990's with more authority, or better timing, than Robert J. Shiller.


John Cassidy, The New Yorker
During the past decade, he has emerged as a leader in the new field of "behavioral finance" which seeks to apply lessons learned from other academic disciplines, particularly psychology to economics. Irrational Exuberance is not just a prophecy of doom. Encompassing history, sociology, and biology, as well as psychology and economics, it is a serious attempt to explain how speculative bubbles come about and how they sustain themselves.


The Economist
Irrational Exuberance should be compulsory reading for anybody interested in Wall Street or financially exposed to it; at the moment that would be roughly everybody in the United States, from Alan Greenspan down to the proverbial shoe-shine boy.


Paul Krugman, The New York Times
"Given the title of Mr. Shiller's book, you can guess the punch line. He makes a powerful case that the soaring stock market of recent years is a huge, accidental Ponzi scheme in progress, one that will come to a very bad end. The book actually focuses on the market broadly defined (most numbers are for the S.&P. 500), but it reads even better as a tale of the tech stocks".


Robert J. Samuelson, The Washington Post
Alan Greenspan faces long odds in trying to nudge the stock market to where he'd like it to go. The chairman of the Federal Reserve has argued that the buoyant market--by making Americans feel so much wealthier--has triggered a consumer spending spree that threatens inflationary wage pressures. The idea is to dampen spending and the ravenous appetite for stocks. Anyone who thinks this will be easy should read "Irrational Exuberance," a new book by Yale University economist Robert J. Shiller. Beyond arguing that the present market is a "speculative bubble," Shiller contends that investor psychology is so given to herd behavior that it's almost impossible to manipulate or even influence. The market can "go through significant mispricing lasting years or even decades.


David Warsh, Boston Globe
Thus it is an event of some significance that Shiller has written a crystal-clear and tough-minded critique of the factors that have driven US stock markets to their current levels and called his book ''Irrational Exuberance.'' In it, he argues that Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan had it exactly right when he uttered the famous phrase in a speech in 1996. The current high levels of the market don't represent a consensus judg ment by a cadre of sober experts, says Shiller. Instead, today's market is sky high because of wishful thinking by millions of people, egged on by professionals in and around Wall Street whose incentives all run in the direction of the more the merrier.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Taking his title from Alan Greenspan's 1996 cautionary phrase, Shiller demonstrates that the uniqueness of investors today make traditional economic interpretations obsolete. With the urgency of this morning's headlines, he warns that the herd behavior that triggered the market's recent roller-coaster dips and rises will continue to distort its mechanisms, and he advises reader-investors about actions that they can take or should avoid.

ANNOTATION

Irrational Exuberance is a must-read for pension-plan sponsors and endowment managers in the United States and abroad. It will also be studied by investment advisers, policy makers, and anyone from Wall Street to Main Street who doesn't want to be caught sitting on the speculative bubble if (or when) it bursts.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"In this update of his 2000 bestseller, Irrational Exuberance, Robert Shiller returns to the topic that gained him international fame: market volatility. Shiller breaks new ground in this second edition by laying out in even clearer and starker terms the market excess that continue to destabilize the economy and disrupt our lives." "Building on the original edition, Shiller draws out the psychological origins of volatility in financial markets, this time folding real estate into his analysis. He broadens the evidence that investing in capital markets of all kinds in the modern free market is inherently unstable - subject to the profoundly human influences captured in Alan Greenspan's now-famous phrase, "irrational exuberance."" The ultimate solution to this troubling condition, he maintains, would involve better-designed public institutions such as a revamped social security system, new forms of insurance to protect people's incomes and homes, and a broader array of investment options.

SYNOPSIS

Shiller credits an unprecedented confluence of events with driving stocks to uncharted heights. He analyzes the structural and psychological factors that explain why the Dow Jones Industrial Average tripled between 1994 and 1999, a level of growth not reflected in any other sector of the economy. In contrast to many analysts, Shiller stresses circumstances that alter investors' perceptions of the market. These include the entry of the Internet into American homes, the misimpression that the aging of the baby-boom generation builds long-term protection into the market, and herd behavior, such as day-trading. He also examines cultural factors, including sports-style media coverage of the Dow's ups and downs and "new era" thinking about the economy. He considers￯﾿ﾽand challenges￯﾿ﾽefforts to rationalize exuberance that are based on either efficient-markets theory, narrowly construed, or the claim that investors have only recently learned the true value of the market.

In the most controversial portion of the book, Shiller cautions that a market that is overvalued by historical standards is inherently precarious. Among his prescriptions is an urgent plea to immediately end what he argues are perilous schemes to privatize social security in favor of plans to reformit. He also argues that private pension plans that encourage many people to put their entire retirement funds in the stock market should be modified. And he calls on our savings and investment institutions to take more sensible account of emerging risk-management principles. Shiller's analysis is convincingly documented, and￯﾿ﾽregardless of the market's future behavior￯﾿ﾽhis book will stand as an important elaboration of why stocks soared and what our investment alternatives are.

FROM THE CRITICS

Burton G. Malkiel - Wall Street Journal

Irrational Exuberance presents a message investors would be wise to heed: Make sure your portfolio is adequately diversified. Save more and don't count on the double-digit gains of the past decades continuing to bail you out during retirement. Mr. Shiller's book offers a dose of realism and is a great read.

David Warsh - Boston Globe

Thus it is an event of some significance that Shiller has written a crystal-clear and tough-minded critique of the factors that have driven US stock markets to their current levels and called his book Irrational Exuberance. In it, he argues that Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan had it exactly right when he uttered the famous phrase in a speech in 1996. The current high levels of the market don't represent a consensus judgment by a cadre of sober experts, says Shiller. Instead, today's market is sky high because of wishful thinking by millions of people, egged on by professionals in and around Wall Street whose incentives all run in the direction of the more the merrier.

John Cassidy - New Yorker

During the past decade, he has emerged as a leader in the new field of "behavioral finance" which seeks to apply lessons learned from other academic disciplines, particularly psychology to economics. Irrational Exuberance is not just a prophecy of doom. Encompassing history, sociology, and biology, as well as psychology and economics, it is a serious attempt to explain how speculative bubbles come about and how they sustain themselves.

Robert J. Samuelson - Washington Post

Alan Greenspan faces long odds in trying to nudge the stock market to where he'd like it to go. The chairman of the Federal Reserve has argued that the buoyant market -- by making Americans feel so much wealthier -- has triggered a consumer spending spree that threatens inflationary wage pressures....The idea is to dampen spending and the ravenous appetite for stocks. Anyone who thinks this will be easy should read Irrational Exuberance, a new book by Yale University economist Robert J. Shiller. Beyond arguing that the present market is a "speculative bubble," Shiller contends that investor psychology is so given to herd behavior that it's almost impossible to manipulate or even influence. The market can "go through significant mispricing lasting years or even decades."

Diane Coyle - Independent (London)

As the share prices of dot.coms and high-tech companies fall to earth, you have to wonder whether the bubble is finally bursting. Yet many people still find it hard to shake the gut feeling that nothing should be allowed to spoil the party, even though the rational mind insists stock markets have been wildly overvalued. Robert Shiller, a highly respected professor of economics at Yale University in the US, offers in this timely book some food for the intellect to chew on. He points out that if the general level of share prices were to fall back to their mid-1990s level - a drop in the S&P 500 from about 1,400 to about 500 - the inflation-adjusted losses would be comparable to the destruction of all the farms, or all the homes in America.Read all 10 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Michael Brennan, Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles

This is an excellent book by a distinguished scholar. It raises an issue of the utmost importance for the U.S. economy and presents a persuasive case that the U.S. stock market may be significantly overvalued. It is well written for a popular as well as a professional readership  — Michael Brennan

While Irrational Exuberance may overstate the extent of "overpricing" and predictability in the market, it presents a message investors would be wise to heed: Make sure your portfolio is adequately diversified. Save more and don't count on the double-digit gains of the past decades continuing to bail you out during retirement. Mr. Shiller's book offers a dose of realism -- particularly if you have been reading books like "Dow 36,000," "Dow 40,000" and "Dow 100,000" -- that serious investors will ignore at their peril." — Burton G. Malkiel, author of Random Walk Down Wall Street, in a review for the Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2000