Mervyn King Books

We begin with the central distinction that underpins the entire argument: the difference between measurable risk and radical uncertainty. Risk describes situations in which we can assign probabilities to outcomes—the classic coin toss, insurance calculation, or roulette table. The domain of risk is ...

From Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers

Kay and King next walk us through the intellectual history of how economics became obsessed with quantification. They describe the journey from the early 20th century when Keynes and Knight still spoke of 'unknowable uncertainty,' to the mid-century formalism of expected utility theory, rational exp...

From Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers

To comprehend where we are, one must first see where we came from. The history of money and banking is, in essence, a story of trust. Early systems of barter, constrained by coincidence of wants, gradually gave way to commodity money—metals that held intrinsic value. Yet as societies and trade grew ...

From The End Of Alchemy: Money, Banking, And The Future Of The Global Economy

Money is often described as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. But these textbook definitions hide a deeper truth: money is not a thing, it is a relationship. It is a social technology based upon mutual trust. When I hand you a note, you believe it has value because you b...

From The End Of Alchemy: Money, Banking, And The Future Of The Global Economy