Financial Markets, Risks, & Crises

What is the role of finance in society? Is finance necessary to build the good society? What are the risks of finance? Why do we have so many financial crises? What is the importance of morality and philanthropy in finance? What are financial markets?

These questions are inspired by the first two videos in 2013 Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller's exquisite free on-line course ECON 252: Financial Markets (2011) at Open Yale Courses (http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-252-11) (YouTube Playlist for Financial Markets (2011) (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8FB14A2200B87185)).

• Introduction to Financial Markets (http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-252-11/lecture-1):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQui_3Hpmmc

My notes on Shiller's Introductory video. (https://plus.google.com/104222466367230914966/posts/jWk9e4mShgC)

• Risk and Financial Crises (http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-252-11/lecture-2):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbosMr2JVrc

My notes on Shiller's video on risk and crises. (https://plus.google.com/104222466367230914966/posts/KmDRkrQFw67)

• Conclusion of the Risk Discussion is in the first 14 minutes of lecture 3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iij2mpilSJo)

To supplement the videos, I recommend Shiller's award winning book "Finance and the Good Society". Follow this link to the New York Times' book review of "Finance and the Good Society" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/books/review/finance-and-the-good-society-by-robert-j-shiller.html). The book is a conversation starter and as such is full of ideas with which you are expected to grapple and (usually) disagree. As such it will stimulate a lot of good discussions.

http://press.princeton.edu/images/j9652.gif

The discussion will focus on these core subjects:

• The role of finance in society and its role in the Good Society, in particular

• The role of risk in finance

• The nature and cause of financial crises

This topic is a repeat from the one on the 8th of Dec. (https://www.meetup.com/thinkingsociety/events/146704782/)

Note: In February 2014, Robert Shiller will be presenting his course Financial Markets on the Coursera Platform (https://www.coursera.org/course/financialmarkets). I prefer archived, at-your-own-pace courses and will only dabble a little in the Coursera edition of the course. But if you are interested in the material and want to go into it in more depth and if your schedule and mental state enjoy the excitement and community of deadline-driven courses, it will be a great experience, I'm sure.

Note: I am tentatively planning to run a series of discussions on the 2011 ECON 252 course (http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-252-11) with Shiller's book as an important supplement. I watched the 2008 edition of the course in 2008-9 and identified Shiller and his course as exquisite. I am looking forward to going into the subject in more depth, taking notes, and leading discussions on each of the fundamental topics which the course addresses. This is one of a handfull of free on-line courses with which everyone ought to be familiar: it is of profound importance to our everyday lives and the future of civilization! I look forward to engaging it with the Greater Philadelphia Thinking Society.