Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk Read online

  THE REMARKABLE STORY OF RISK

  PETER L. BERNSTEIN

  For

  Peter Brodsky

  Acknowledgments ix

  Introduction 1

  TO 1200: BEGINNINGS

  1. The Winds of the Greeks and the Role of the Dice 11

  2. As Easy as I, II, III 23

  1200-1700: A THOUSAND OUTSTANDING FACTS

  3. The Renaissance Gambler 39

  4. The French Connection 57

  5. The Remarkable Notions of the Remarkable Notions Man 73

  1700-1900: MEASUREMENT UNLIMITED

  6. Considering the Nature of Man 99

  7. The Search for Moral Certainty 116

  8. The Supreme Law of Unreason 135

  9. The Man with the Sprained Brain 152

  10. Peapods and Perils 172

  11. The Fabric of Felicity 187

  1900-1960: CLOUDS OF VAGUENESS AND THE DEMAND FOR PRECISION

  12. The Measure of Our Ignorance 197

  13. The Radically Distinct Notion 215

  14. The Man Who Counted Everything Except Calories 231

  15. The Strange Case of the Anonymous Stockbroker 247

  DEGREES OF BELIEF: EXPLORING UNCERTAINTY

  16. The Failure of Invariance 269

  17. The Theory Police 284

  18. The Fantastic System of Side Bets 304

  19. Awaiting the Wildness 329

  Notes 339

  Bibliography 353

  Name Index 365

  Subject Index 369

  The suggestion that I write a book about risk came from the late Erwin Glickes, then president of The Free Press. Erwin was a man who projected copious amounts of power, persuasiveness, and charm. Although he considered my long experience as a professional investor to be sufficient qualification for the task he had in mind, I soon discovered, as I had feared, that risk does not begin and end on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

  The vastness of the subject matter is daunting. Risk touches on the most profound aspects of psychology, mathematics, statistics, and history. The literature is monumental, and each day's headlines bring many new items of interest. Consequently, I have had to be selective. I believe, however, that the omission of any important material was the result of a decision on my part rather than an act of oversight.

  For this project, I have been far more dependent on other people than I had been in my earlier forays into writing books. Old friends as well as many complete strangers from a wide variety of disciplines have provided invaluable assistance combined with criticisms and creative suggestions. In this case, increasing the number of cooks was a clear benefit. My gratitude to them is boundless. There would have been no book at all without them.

  Convention dictates that expressions of appreciation to spouses and editors should come at the end of the list of acknowledgments, but on this occasion I choose to mention my wife and my editor first. That is where they belong.

  Barbara, my wife as well as my business partner, provided countless creative ideas, conceptual contributions, and positive criticisms, all of them essential to the task; there is barely a page that does not reflect her influence. In addition, her success in arranging our lives to accommodate this whole project made all the difference between progress and chaos.

  Myles Thompson of John Wiley has been critically important to the project. I have been privileged to have his expert editorial suggestions, to enjoy his enthusiastic leadership, and to benefit from his professional management. Myles's colleagues at Wiley have cooperated with me in every way possible from start to finish. Everett Sims's copyediting helped me to make sense where there was confusion, while his masterful use of the scalpel exorcised a great deal of fluff in the manuscript without harm to the content below.

  A few people rendered assistance far beyond the call of duty. I owe a special debt to Peter Dougherty for his countless inestimable comments and suggestions. Mark Kritzman was a tireless pilot through the shoals of mathematical and statistical treatments. Richard Rogalski and his associates at the Baker Library at Dartmouth saved me untold hours by making their facilities available to me at long distance; Rich's good humor and eagerness to help added to the joy of having his generous assistance. Martin Leibowitz bestowed a gift of immensely valuable material that has enriched the content of the book. Richard and Edith Sylla were indefatigable investigators at points where the going was the roughest. Stanley Kogelman furnished me with a priceless tutorial in probability analysis. Leora Klapper served as an ideal research assistant: indefatigable, enthusiastic, thorough, and prompt.

  Molly Baker, Peter Brodsky, Robert Ferguson, Richard Geist, and William Lee were good enough to read segments of early versions of the manuscript. They gave me the running start I needed in order to transform rough drafts into a finished material.

  The following people also made significant contributions to my work and warrant my deepest appreciation: Kenneth Arrow, Gilbert Bassett, William Baumol, Zalmon Bernstein, Doris Bullard, Paul Davidson, Donald Dewey, David Durand, Barbara Fotinatos, James Fraser, Greg Hayt, Roger Hertog, Victor Howe, Bertrand Jacquillat, Daniel Kahneman, Mary Kentouris, Mario Laserna, Dean LeBaron, Michelle Lee, Harry Markowitz, Morton Meyers, James Norris, Todd Petzel, Paul Samuelson, Robert Shiller, Charles Smithson, Robert Solow, Meir Statman, Marta Steele, Richard Thaler, James Tinsley, Frank Trainer, Amos Tversky,* and Marina von N. Whitman.

  Eight people generously undertook to read the manuscript in its entirety and to give me the benefit of their expert criticisms and suggestions. Each of them, in his own way, deserves major credit for the quality of the content and style of the book, without bearing any responsibility for the shortcomings it contains. Here they are: Theodore Aronson, Peter Brodsky, Jay Eliasberg, Robert Heilbroner, Peter Kinder, Charles Kindleberger, Mark Kritzman, and Stephen Stigler.

  I end with a note of thanks to my late parents, Allen M. Bernstein and Irma L. Davis, who inspired much of the enthusiasm that went into the creation of this book.

  PETER L. BERNSTEIN

  AGAINST THE GODS

  hat is it that distinguishes the thousands of years of history from what we think of as modern times? The answer goes way beyond the progress of science, technology, capitalism, and democracy.

  The distant past was studded with brilliant scientists, mathematicians, inventors, technologists, and political philosophers. Hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, the skies had been mapped, the great library of Alexandria built, and Euclid's geometry taught. Demand for technological innovation in warfare was as insatiable then as it is today. Coal, oil, iron, and copper have been at the service of human beings for millennia, and travel and communication mark the very beginnings of recorded civilization.

  The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk: the notion that the future is more than a whim of the gods and that men and women are not passive before nature. Until human beings discovered a way across that boundary, the future was a mirror of the past or the murky domain of oracles and soothsayers who held a monopoly over knowledge of anticipated events.

  This book tells the story of a group of thinkers whose remarkable vision revealed how to put the future at the service of the present. By showing the world how to understand risk, measure it, and weigh its consequences, they converted risk-taking into one of the prime catalysts that drives modem Western society. Like Prometheus, they defied the gods and probed the darkness in search of the light that converted the future from an enemy into an opportunity. The transformation in attitudes toward risk management unleashed by their achievements has channeled the hum
an passion for games and wagering into economic growth, improved quality of life, and technological progress.

  By defining a rational process of risk-taking, these innovators provided the missing ingredient that has propelled science and enterprise into the world of speed, power, instant communication, and sophisticated finance that marks our own age. Their discoveries about the nature of risk, and the art and science of choice, lie at the core of our modern market economy that nations around the world are hastening to join. Given all its problems and pitfalls, the free economy, with choice at its center, has brought humanity unparalleled access to the good things of life.

  The ability to define what may happen in the future and to choose among alternatives lies at the heart of contemporary societies. Risk management guides us over a vast range of decision-making, from allocating wealth to safeguarding public health, from waging war to planning a family, from paying insurance premiums to wearing a seatbelt, from planting corn to marketing cornflakes.

  In the old days, the tools of farming, manufacture, business management, and communication were simple. Breakdowns were frequent, but repairs could be made without calling the plumber, the electrician, the computer scientist-or the accountants and the investment advisers. Failure in one area seldom had direct impact on another. Today, the tools we use are complex, and breakdowns can be catastrophic, with farreaching consequences. We must be constantly aware of the likelihood of malfunctions and errors. Without a command of probability theory and other instruments of risk management, engineers could never have designed the great bridges that span our widest rivers, homes would still be heated by fireplaces or parlor stoves, electric power utilities would not exist, polio would still be maiming children, no airplanes would fly, and space travel would be just a dream.* Without insurance in its many varieties, the death of the breadwinner would reduce young families to starvation or charity, even more people would be denied health care, and only the wealthiest could afford to own a home. If farmers were unable to sell their crops at a price fixed before harvest, they would produce far less food than they do.

  If we had no liquid capital markets that enable savers to diversify their risks, if investors were limited to owning just one stock (as they were in the early days of capitalism), the great innovative enterprises that define our age-companies like Microsoft, Merck, DuPont, Alcoa, Boeing, and McDonald's-might never have come into being. The capacity to manage risk, and with it the appetite to take risk and make forward-looking choices, are key elements of the energy that drives the economic system forward.

  The modern conception of risk is rooted in the Hindu-Arabic numbering system that reached the West seven to eight hundred years ago. But the serious study of risk began during the Renaissance, when people broke loose from the constraints of the past and subjected longheld beliefs to open challenge. This was a time when much of the world was to be discovered and its resources exploited. It was a time of religious turmoil, nascent capitalism, and a vigorous approach to science and the future.

  In 1654, a time when the Renaissance was in full flower, the Chevalier de Mere, a French nobleman with a taste for both gambling and mathematics, challenged the famed French mathematician Blaise Pascal to solve a puzzle. The question was how to divide the stakes of an unfinished game of chance between two players when one of them is ahead. The puzzle had confounded mathematicians since it was posed some two hundred years earlier by the monk Luca Paccioli. This was the man who brought double-entry bookkeeping to the attention of the business managers of his day-and tutored Leonardo da Vinci in the multiplication tables. Pascal turned for help to Pierre de Fermat, a lawyer who was also a brilliant mathematician. The outcome of their collaboration was intellectual dynamite. What might appear to have been a seventeenth-century version of the game of Trivial Pursuit led to the discovery of the theory of probability, the mathematical heart of the concept of risk.

  Their solution to Paccioli's puzzle meant that people could for the first time make decisions and forecast the future with the help of numbers. In the medieval and ancient worlds, even in preliterate and peasant societies, people managed to make decisions, advance their interests, and carry on trade, but with no real understanding of risk or the nature of decision-making. Today, we rely less on superstition and tradition than people did in the past, not because we are more rational, but because our understanding of risk enables us to make decisions in a rational mode.

  At the time Pascal and Fermat made their breakthrough into the fascinating world of probability, society was experiencing an extraordinary wave of innovation and exploration. By 1654, the roundness of the earth was an established fact, vast new lands had been discovered, gunpowder was reducing medieval castles to dust, printing with movable type had ceased to be a novelty, artists were skilled in the use of perspective, wealth was pouring into Europe, and the Amsterdam stock exchange was flourishing. Some years earlier, in the 1630s, the famed Dutch tulip bubble had burst as a result of the issuing of options whose essential features were identical to the sophisticated financial instruments in use today.

  These developments had profound consequences that put mysticism on the run. By this time Martin Luther had had his say and halos had disappeared from most paintings of the Holy Trinity and the saints. William Harvey had overthrown the medical teachings of the ancients with his discovery of the circulation of blood-and Rembrandt had painted "The Anatomy Lesson," with its cold, white, naked human body. In such an environment, someone would soon have worked out the theory of probability, even if the Chevalier de Mere had never confronted Pascal with his brainteaser.

  As the years passed, mathematicians transformed probability theory from a gamblers' toy into a powerful instrument for organizing, interpreting, and applying information. As one ingenious idea was piled on top of another, quantitative techniques of risk management emerged that have helped trigger the tempo of modern times.

  By 1725, mathematicians were competing with one another in devising tables of life expectancies, and the English government was financing itself through the sale of life annuities. By the middle of the century, marine insurance had emerged as a flourishing, sophisticated business in London.

  In 1703, Gottfried von Leibniz commented to the Swiss scientist and mathematician Jacob Bernoulli that "[N]ature has established patterns originating in the return of events, but only for the most part,"' thereby prompting Bernoulli to invent the Law of Large Numbers and methods of statistical sampling that drive modern activities as varied as opinion polling, wine tasting, stock picking, and the testing of new drugs.* Leibniz's admonition-"but only for the most part"-was more profound than he may have realized, for he provided the key to why there is such a thing as risk in the first place: without that qualification, everything would be predictable, and in a world where every event is identical to a previous event no change would ever occur.

  In 1730, Abraham de Moivre suggested the structure of the normal distribution-also known as the bell curve-and discovered the concept of standard deviation. Together, these two concepts make up what is popularly known as the Law of Averages and are essential ingredients of modern techniques for quantifying risk. Eight years later, Daniel Bernoulli, Jacob's nephew and an equally distinguished mathematician and scientist, first defined the systematic process by which most people make choices and reach decisions. Even more important, he propounded the idea that the satisfaction resulting from any small increase in wealth "will be inversely proportionate to the quantity of goods previously possessed." With that innocent-sounding assertion, Bernoulli explained why King Midas was an unhappy man, why people tend to be risk-averse, and why prices must fall if customers are to be persuaded to buy more. Bernoulli's statement stood as the dominant paradigm of rational behavior for the next 250 years and laid the groundwork for modern principles of investment management.

  Almost exactly one hundred years after the collaboration between Pascal and Fermat, a dissident English minister named Thomas Bayes made a striking advance in s
tatistics by demonstrating how to make better-informed decisions by mathematically blending new information into old information. Bayes's theorem focuses on the frequent occasions when we have sound intuitive judgments about the probability of some event and want to understand how to alter those judgments as actual events unfold.

  All the tools we use today in risk management and in the analysis of decisions and choice, from the strict rationality of game theory to the challenges of chaos theory, stem from the developments that took place between 1654 and 1760, with only two exceptions:

  In 1875, Francis Galton, an amateur mathematician who was Charles Darwin's first cousin, discovered regression to the mean, which explains why pride goeth before a fall and why clouds tend to have silver linings. Whenever we make any decision based on the expectation that matters will return to "normal," we are employing the notion of regression to the mean.

  In 1952, Nobel Laureate Harry Markowitz, then a young graduate student studying operations research at the University of Chicago, demonstrated mathematically why putting all your eggs in one basket is an unacceptably risky strategy and why diversification is the nearest an investor or business manager can ever come to a free lunch. That revelation touched off the intellectual movement that revolutionized Wall Street, corporate finance, and business decisions around the world; its effects are still being felt today.

  The story that I have to tell is marked all the way through by a persistent tension between those who assert that the best decisions are based on quantification and numbers, determined by the patterns of the past, and those who base their decisions on more subjective degrees of belief about the uncertain future. This is a controversy that has never been resolved.

  The issue boils down to one's view about the extent to which the past determines the future. We cannot quantify the future, because it is an unknown, but we have learned how to use numbers to scrutinize what happened in the past. But to what degree should we rely on the patterns of the past to tell us what the future will be like? Which matters more when facing a risk, the facts as we see them or our subjective belief in what lies hidden in the void of time? Is risk management a science or an art? Can we even tell for certain precisely where the dividing line between the two approaches lies?