Articles by D N Ghosh

The recent Saradha ponzi scam in West Bengal and the proliferation of such dodgy small-depositor fi nancial schemes in other parts of the country point to the inadequate role of fi nancial regulators. Despite ample examples of the misery they cause, the regulators have not yet responded to the challenges, leaving poor investors at the mercy of the scamsters.

Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720 by Carl Wennerlind (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press), 2011; pp 348, Rs 2,764.

The Oxford India Anthology of Business History edited by Medha M Kudaisya (Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2011; pp 492 + xxviii, Rs 1,295.

Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy by Joseph E Stiglitz.

In chapter 6 of their 1963 classic, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz argue that the tragic consequences of the Great Contraction of 1929-1933 could have been averted with a strong leadership at the helm of the Federal Reserve. The article turns this observation on its head and asks: If there is a strong leadership at the helm of the financial system, is there any assurance that there will be no crisis in the system, or if any crisis is brewing, will a strong leadership succeed in nipping it in the bud? It tests this in the light of what has been happening in Wall Street since the mid-1990s.