The Five Books You Need to Understand the Future of Global Investing

I'm reading Mohamed El-Erian's guide to the future of global markets, "When Markets Collide." He has in it a few of the books he seems to have found most inspirational for his own well-regarded look at what's going on in world business.

He cites "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner;
"Fooled by Randomness," Nassim Nicholas Taleb;
"The Black Swan," Nassim Nicholas Taleb
"Capital Ideas Evolving," Peter L. Bernstein
"Inside the Investor's Brain," Richard L. Peterson
He also quotes from "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money," by John Maynard Keynes, whom he calls his favorite economist.

Other than Keynes, all these books are recent and show a number of the influences shaping modern economics, such as neuroscience and behavioral psychology. If he successfully integrates these ideas in his book in a way intelligible to the reader, he'll have a powerful book. UPDATE: El-Erian's book has to be on this list, and probably should be first (Big Think Breakdown on When Markets Collide). He's got the best analysis I've yet seen or heard on just what's going on and what the risk factors are.

Michael Fitzgerald

Michael Fitzgerald writes about innovation and other big ideas in business for publications like the New York Times, The Economist, Fast Company, Inc. and CIO. He’s worked as a writer or editor at Red Herring, ZDNet, TechTV and Computerworld, and has received numerous awards as a writer and editor. Most recently, his piece on the hacker collective the l0pht won the 2008 award for best trade piece from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. He was also a 2007 Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow in Science and Religion.

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