Alex J. Pollock spent thirty-five years in the banking industry before becoming a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he researches housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, corporate governance, and the banking system. He is a director of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the International Housing Union for Housing Finance.

Alex J. Pollock isn't angry about the financial panic that erupted in 2008 and knocked the U.S. economy into the worst slump since the 1930s. Mr. Pollock, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former banker, isn't even looking for someone to blame. In Boom and Bust, he swiftly identifies the villain-a familiar, sometimes endearing and invariably roguish character known as human nature. The Wall Street Journal Provides some basics on financial cycles. World Magazine