Being written
This chapter is outlined but not yet drafted. Chapter 2 is complete and shows the format: plain-language explanations, charts drawn from the current official release, and a numbered Excel walkthrough for every figure.
Planned sections
- 5-1 Where markets came from — from bills of exchange to exchanges
- 5-2 Money markets and capital markets
- 5-3 Primary and secondary markets, and why liquidity is worth paying for
- 5-4 Efficiency, and the argument that will not settle
- 5-5 Bubbles and panics in the long record
- 5-6 What has actually changed, and what has not
Planned charts
Chart
A century of interest rates
The longest available rate series, showing how unusual any given decade looks from inside it.
Chart
Inflation, the long view
CPI inflation back to the 1910s, with the pre- and post-1971 regimes side by side.
Chart
Market capitalisation against GDP
How large equity markets have become relative to the economy underneath them.
Chart
Crises, marked
The long rate series with the major panics annotated.
Data this chapter will use
Series
- Consumer price index, not seasonally adjusted, from 1913 — Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Long-term government bond yields — Federal Reserve H.15 and historical Fed publications
- Nominal GDP — BEA, National Income and Product Accounts