Ralph spoke economics at the BYOB Party this time. The book he focused on this time was Investment Philosophies by Aswath Damodaran, a well-known academic and practitioner in finance.

It’s a very interesting book, a reference textbook for management students too. There are some very descriptive exercises which I didn’t do as I was intimidated by the prospect. It’s the perfect guide for investors who want a better understanding of investment strategies including indexing, passive and activist value investing, growth investing, chart/technical analysis, market timing, arbitrage, etc. It’s no book for a novice and is based entirely on empirical studies. No gut feel or magic wand here.

You can follow Damodaran’s YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLvnJL8htRR1T9cbSccaoVw

The economics trend continued with Devanshu who talked about The Price of Inequality by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Turns out inequality doesn’t help the privileged either in the long run. Stiglitz does an in-depth study of what leads to inequality- unpredictable markets and faulty political systems. Adam Smith was discussed as is the case when economics is brought up. Indira mentioned an insightful book called The Growth Delusion by David Pilling, a revelatory and entertaining book about the pitfalls of how we measure our economy and how to correct them. If you are looking for the equivalent of Strunk and White of Economics, look no further than the book Economics in one Lesson by Henry Hazlitt- another good book to understand the economy. To understand the story of runaway capitalism, watch The Lorax.

More books in Part 3.