Something for Nothing

From a leading financial economist, a searching examination of the ethics of modern finance.

In 2001, Goldman Sachs structured a complex financial contract so that its client, the government of Greece, would appear to have far less debt than it actually did. When news of this transaction came out years later, the inevitable question arose: Even though Goldman's actions were legal, were they ethically wrong? Is modern finance itself inherently unethical?

In Something for Nothing, financial economist Maureen O'Hara explains that one of the key innovations of modern finance is its reliance on arbitrage, the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets to generate profits and remove inefficiencies. When done correctly, arbitrage can create value at little or no cost (in effect, getting "something for nothing"); but it can also be an exploitative tool.

In a lucid, insightful discussion of the ethics of arbitrage…