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Economics » Finance

Most Recommended Books

Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises by Charles Kindleberger

“Kindleberger’s message is that complacency can be a self-denying prophecy.”

Larry Summers, Economist

Read more

This Time Is Different by Carmen Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff

“They…took an enormous amount of time to put together datasets that allow us to look back eight centuries and ask, quantitatively, whether there are any common denominators to financial crises. And the not-surprising answer is, ‘Yes, absolutely.’”

Andrew W Lo, Economist

Read more

Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John C. Bogle

“John C. Bogle shares his extensive insights on investing in mutual funds”

Burton Malkiel, Economist

Read more

Against the Gods by Peter L Bernstein

“In the book, he explores risk at every conceivable level – what it is mathematically and what it is psychologically, how it has played out historically, how people have thought to measure it and also to control it.”

Jason Zweig, Journalist

Read more

Browse book recommendations:

Economics

  • Behavioural Economics
  • Development Economics
  • Economic History
  • Economics Textbooks
  • Finance
  • Financial Crisis
  • Globalisation & Inequality
  • New Books
  • World Economies

Finance makes the world go around, so it's important that you understand at least the very basics. We have two introductory interviews on finance: one is an ‘understanding high finance’ reading list with journalist and novelist John Lanchester, who taught himself all about it. The other is with Andrew Lo, a leading light in the field and a professor who teaches finance at MIT.

Beyond those, Jason Zweig takes us through his best books on personal finance and Burton Malkiel chooses his best books on investing. Marc Faber chooses his best books on investment. James Owen Weatherall chooses his top books on physics and financial markets and Jonathan Gruber chooses his best books on public finance. Gary Gorton looks at financial crises, and Charles Morris at crashes.

A number of finance books are recommended more than once. Andrew Lo and Charles Morris both choose This Time It’s Different­ by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. Burton Malkiel and Jason Zweig both recommend Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John C Bogle. Zweig and John Lanchester both recommend Against the Gods: the Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter Bernstein as a great introduction to the history of how the mastering of probability helped to transform human society. Morris and Faber both choose Manias Panics Crashes: A history of Financial Crashes by Charles P Kindleberger.

RELATED:

There is, of course, a lot of overlap in this subject with investment, but if you’re looking for books specifically on investment, please click on our ‘How to Invest’ section. All our interviews on financial crises can be found here.

    The best books on Cryptocurrency, recommended by David Birch

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    The best books on Cryptocurrency - The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order by Michael Casey & Paul Vigna

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    The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order
    by Michael Casey & Paul Vigna

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    The best books on Cryptocurrency - Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency by Finn Brunton

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    Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency
    by Finn Brunton

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    The best books on Cryptocurrency - A History of Money by Glyn Davies

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    A History of Money
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    The best books on Cryptocurrency - Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks, and Other Money Stuff Bill Maurer and Lana Swartz (eds)

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    Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks, and Other Money Stuff
    Bill Maurer and Lana Swartz (eds)

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    The best books on Cryptocurrency - The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains by Antony Lewis

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    The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains
    by Antony Lewis

The best books on Cryptocurrency, recommended by David Birch

Proselytes for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin extol them as a liberation technology to free us from big government. Sceptics insist that while they have been the source of useful technologies, as units of value, account and exchange, they will remain marginal. Here, digital currency expert David Birch chooses five books to help you understand the utopian roots of cryptocurrencies, the technology behind how they work, their functions and uses, and their broader place in the long history of money.

    The Best Finance Books, recommended by Andrew W Lo

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    The Best Finance Books - The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L Heilbroner

    1

    The Worldly Philosophers
    by Robert L Heilbroner

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    The Best Finance Books - A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel

    2

    A Random Walk Down Wall Street
    by Burton Malkiel

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    The Best Finance Books - Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street by Peter L Bernstein

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    Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street
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    The Best Finance Books - This Time Is Different by Carmen Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff

    5

    This Time Is Different
    by Carmen Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff

The Best Finance Books, recommended by Andrew W Lo

At its worst, finance leads to crises and economic dislocation and, yet, it’s absolutely vital to solving many of the problems society faces today. MIT’s Andrew W Lo introduces some of the best books on finance and explains how it can change the world for the better.

    The best books on Investing, recommended by Burton Malkiel

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    The best books on Investing - Winning the Loser’s Game by Charles D. Ellis

    1

    Winning the Loser’s Game
    by Charles D. Ellis

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    The best books on Investing - The Little Book of Safe Money by Jason Zweig

    2

    The Little Book of Safe Money
    by Jason Zweig

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    The best books on Investing - Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John C. Bogle

    3

    Common Sense on Mutual Funds
    by John C. Bogle

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    The best books on Investing - The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

    4

    The Black Swan
    by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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    The best books on Investing - The Investor’s Manifesto by William J. Bernstein

    5

    The Investor’s Manifesto
    by William J. Bernstein

The best books on Investing, recommended by Burton Malkiel

Burton Malkiel, a professor of economics (emeritus) at Princeton University and author of the bestselling A Random Walk Down Wall Street, recommends his top picks of books to read on investing.

    The best books on Personal Finance, recommended by Jason Zweig

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    The best books on Personal Finance - Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John C. Bogle

    1

    Common Sense on Mutual Funds
    by John C. Bogle

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    The best books on Personal Finance - Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes by Gary Belsky & Thomas Gilovich

    2

    Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes
    by Gary Belsky & Thomas Gilovich

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    The best books on Personal Finance - Against the Gods by Peter L Bernstein

    3

    Against the Gods
    by Peter L Bernstein

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    The best books on Personal Finance - Where Are the Customers’ Yachts? by Fred Schwed

    4

    Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?
    by Fred Schwed

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    The best books on Personal Finance - How To Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff

    5

    How To Lie With Statistics
    by Darrell Huff

The best books on Personal Finance, recommended by Jason Zweig

The author and Wall Street Journal personal finance columnist, Jason Zweig, explains why there’s truth in the old adage that investors get the returns they deserve, and recommends books that might help you avoid being taken for a ride.

    The best books on Physics and Financial Markets, recommended by James Owen Weatherall

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    The best books on Physics and Financial Markets - The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence by Benoit B. Mandelbrot

    1

    The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence
    by Benoit B. Mandelbrot

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    The best books on Physics and Financial Markets - Foundations of Economic Analysis by Paul A. Samuelson

    2

    Foundations of Economic Analysis
    by Paul A. Samuelson

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    The best books on Physics and Financial Markets - Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems by Didier Sornette

    3

    Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems
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    The best books on Physics and Financial Markets - Beat the Market: A Scientific Stock Market System by Edward O. Thorp and Sheen T. Kassouf

    4

    Beat the Market: A Scientific Stock Market System
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    5

    The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
    by Lee Smolin

The best books on Physics and Financial Markets, recommended by James Owen Weatherall

Blaming “the quants” for the 2008 financial crisis is simplistic and short-sighted, says the author of The Physics of Wall Street. He picks five books showing the contribution physics has made to understanding financial markets.

    The best books on Public Finance, recommended by Jonathan Gruber

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    1

    Economics of the Public Sector
    by Joseph E Stiglitz

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    Taxing Ourselves
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    Green Book
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    Losing Ground
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    Free For All?
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The best books on Public Finance, recommended by Jonathan Gruber

A key figure behind the Massachusetts and Obama healthcare reforms tells us about the purpose and uses of public finance economics, and explains how Romneycare and Obamacare are both different and alike.

    The best books on Understanding High Finance, recommended by John Lanchester

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    1

    The Money Game
    by 'Adam Smith'

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    The best books on Understanding High Finance - Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis

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    Liar’s Poker
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    The best books on Understanding High Finance - Against the Gods by Peter L Bernstein

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    Against the Gods
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    Too Big to Fail
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The best books on Understanding High Finance, recommended by John Lanchester

Understanding finance is key to understanding how the world works, but many people  know very little about it. Journalist John Lanchester picks five accessible books to bring the layperson up to speed.

    The best books on Financial Crises, recommended by Gary Gorton

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    The best books on Financial Crises - A Brief Popular Account of all the Financial Panics and Commercial Revulsions in the US from 1690 to 1857 by Members of the New York Press

    1

    A Brief Popular Account of all the Financial Panics and Commercial Revulsions in the US from 1690 to 1857
    by Members of the New York Press

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    The best books on Financial Crises - History of Crises under the National Banking System by O M W Sprague

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    History of Crises under the National Banking System
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The best books on Financial Crises, recommended by Gary Gorton

Yale professor Gary Gorton says today’s financial crisis may feel like a unique event, but in the US and in the UK crises are historically common. And we have a history of similar responses.

    The best books on Financial Crashes, recommended by Charles Morris

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    The best books on Financial Crashes - Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises by Charles Kindleberger

    1

    Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises
    by Charles Kindleberger

  • Read
    The best books on Financial Crashes - This Time Is Different by Carmen Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff

    2

    This Time Is Different
    by Carmen Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff

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    John Maynard Keynes: 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman
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    A Demon of Our Own Design
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The best books on Financial Crashes, recommended by Charles Morris

The former banker and author of 12 books on economics says that over the last 30 years economics has been colonising every science. “Even something like education all comes down to incentives”

    The best books on Investment, recommended by Marc Faber

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    1

    Booms and Depressions
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    A History of Interest Rates
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    The best books on Investment - Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises by Charles Kindleberger

    4

    Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises
    by Charles Kindleberger

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    5

    Collected Works of Jules Verne
    by Jules Verne

The best books on Investment, recommended by Marc Faber

Marc Faber, the infamous investor known as “Dr Doom”,  discusses books he considers indispensable for those interested in investment. He stresses the importance for investors to be historically aware, and holds that Irving Fisher is one of the best economists of the 20th century.

    The best books on The Poor and Their Money, recommended by Stuart Rutherford

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    The Economics of Microfinance
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    The best books on The Poor and Their Money - Mainstreaming Microfinance by Elisabeth Rhyne

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    Mainstreaming Microfinance
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    The best books on The Poor and Their Money - A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

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    A Fine Balance
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    5

    Small, Short and Unsecured
    by F J A (Fritz) Bouman

The best books on The Poor and Their Money, recommended by Stuart Rutherford

Modern microfinance was born in the late 1970s, and is now viewed as a key way of helping people in poor countries get out of poverty. Author and practitioner Stuart Rutherford recommends the best books to get a basic understanding of microfinance.

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