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Ask HN: What are the must-read books about economics/finance?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the must-read books about economics/finance?

#92

Post by malloryerik »

Aside from strict econ, finance and trading books, I'd heartily suggest economic history.

One of my personal favorites:

Global Capitalism, Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century by Jeffry Frieden.

https://www.amazon.com/Global-Capitalism-Fall-Twentieth-Cent...

From the Journal of International Eeconomics' review:

“Perhaps the greatest merit of Frieden's book is that it allows the reader to see the themes of winners and losers, risk and uncertainty, integration, economic growth and technological change emerge clearly from the deep forest of contemporary history. One gains a greater appreciation for the timelessness of these phenomena and how to begin to get a grip on the bigger picture of policy making and the global economy.”

I found that quote on the author's site. http://scholar.harvard.edu/jfrieden/pages/global-capitalism-...

Re: Ask HN: What are the must-read books about economics/finance?

#93

Post by ohthehugemanate »

Top of my list would be "the ascent of money", by Harvard Prof Niall Ferguson. It explains what money and financial instruments are, by telling the stories of their history. Hes a great story teller, and for each aspect of finance that he explains, there's a story of a famous piece of history which it caused. For example, the application of oriental maths to finance caused a huge boom for Italian bankers, especially including one family, the Medici. That financial boom was responsible for the artistic boom we call Renaissance art. Or how the Dutch republic triumphed over the enormous Hapsburg empire, because the world's largest silver mine couldn't compete with the world's first stock market.

Fantastic read, and a great way to gain financial literacy.

Re: Ask HN: What are the must-read books about economics/finance?

#94

Post by yomritoyj »

Since you are already in a quantitative field I think it would be good to quickly get to the heart of what economists actually do. I would suggest

Varian, 'Intermediate Microeconomics' Luenberger, 'Investment Science' Wooldridge, 'Introductory Econometrics'

for the undergraduate background and then at the graduate level Jehle and Renyi for microeconomics, Duffie for asset pricing theory, Tirole for corporate finance and Campbell, Lo and Macinlay for econometrics.

Re: Ask HN: What are the must-read books about economics/finance?

#97

Post by marklgr »

blobbers wrote: post #58
kevinburke wrote: post #25

(Economics major and longtime econ book/paper reader here) I very much enjoyed The Cartoon Introduction to Economics as an introduction to microeconomic concepts: http://standupeconomist.com/cartoon-intro-microeconomics/ It's extremely readable and funny and covers most of the situations in real life where you can apply economic concepts to understand why something is the way it is. Understanding why countries and ec…

This is a common misunderstanding. Buffett Partnership Ltd., Buffett's initial hedge fund, was very much was guided by the cigar butt style investment principles of Graham. When Buffett bought Berkshire Hathaway a few years after closing the partnership, his investment philosophy had changed. Your best bet to understand his investing is to simply read his letters. He may come across as a bit folksy or country bumpkin…

What's your take on it?

Re: Ask HN: What are the must-read books about economics/finance?

#98

Post by scott00 »

My first read of your request made me think you were looking for books mainly for personal intellectual growth. There are a lot of answers in that vein, as well as a few that seem suitable replacements for an undergrad econ degree. A second read made me wonder if you're actually asking for practical advice about what you should read in order to get a job in finance, given you won't take many econ or finance courses. I'll answer in the second vein, as it seems to be somewhat underrepresented.

Investment Banking/Private Equity/Investment Analysis

McKinsey & Co, Koller, Goedhart, Wessels: Valuation

Damadoran on Valuation

Trading or Quant

Hull: Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives

Joshi: Introduction to Mathematical Finance

Harris: Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners

There should probably also be a category for what I think of as quantitative fundamental investing. For an idea of what I mean, look at what the investment firm AQR does. I'm not sure of good books in this area though.

Re: Ask HN: What are the must-read books about economics/finance?

#100

Post by davidivadavid »

One approach is to go to the MIT OpenCourseWare website, look for the economics department, and look at their reading lists.

Of course, that's going to be mostly academic reading (textbooks, etc.). But if you want to learn the basics, it's probably safer to start there than the pop econ books (and I would dispense with most heterodox reading before you're able to assess them within a larger framework).

Two good books that haven't been mentioned here:

Economic Theory in Retrospect, by Mark Blaug. Very useful to get a good historical grounding in the main ideas that compose today's orthodox economics.

The Applied Theory of Pirce, by McCloskey. Your usual microeconomics textbook, but far more thorough, insisting a lot on grasping the intuition behind the concepts. Available for free from the author's website here: http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/docs/price.pdf

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