● The Ponzi Scheme Puzzle: A History and Analysis of Con Artists and Victims
By Tamar Frankel
Q&A with author, via The New York Times/DealBook blog
Maybe “Ponzi scheme” should have its own spot in the Dewey Decimal System. Along with biographies of the schemers, a growing stack of scholarly references, legal tomes and articles aims to collect knowledge about this age-old crime. But the latest entry in the category, “The Ponzi Scheme Puzzle: A History and Analysis of Con Artists and Victims” by Tamar Frankel, takes a different approach. While Professor Frankel is a legal scholar who has been on the faculty of the Boston University Law School since 1968, her book explores the psychology of the financial criminals and what makes them tick. She was inspired by a colleague who referred to them as “those mimics of trustworthiness: con artists.” She spent more than a decade researching the book, analyzing more than a hundred Ponzi schemes.
