Book Review: The End of Theory. Financial Crises, the Failure of Economics, and the Sweep of Human Interaction

Richard Bookstaber, a risk analyst that in his career has been overseeing risk management, including at investment banks Morgan Stanley and Salomon Brothers, talks about the future of economical theory in The End of Theory, published by Princeton University Press.

Bookstaber starts explaining what happened during the various crises in the last two hundred years of the history of the economy, with a particular consideration about the American world. He then tackles the models that should replace that of economics which, according to Bookstaber, didn’t survive the latest economical crisis, while the economy is starting to get better.

Bookstaber’s model has a starting point that sounds normal but, in his view, is never considered enough: humanity.
The agent-based economics, as he calls it, is better equipped at preventing and managing crises since it is not based on automatons, as standard economics thinks, but on human beings.
Uncertainty, therefore, is a big part of the economy and should be taken into consideration.