Summary of Robert J. Shiller's Irrational Exuberance

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 Irrational exuberance is the psychological basis of a speculative bubble.

I define a speculative bubble as a situation in which news of price increases spurs investor enthusiasm, which spreads by psychological contagion from person to person, and in the process, amplifies stories that justify the price increase.#2 The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a stock market index, peaked in January 2000 at 11,722. 98. The real (inflation-corrected) Dow did not reach this level again until 2014.#3 The stock market boom from 1982 to 2000, which I will call the Millennium Boom, was not justified in any reasonable terms.

Basic economic indicators did not come close to tripling over that period, and corporate profits rose less than 60 percent.#4 The end of the 2000 boom brought stock markets down across much of the world by 2003, as can be seen in Figure 1. 2. The next boom, peaking in late 2007 or early 2008, had huge impacts over much of the world.