This is the last chapter of the book, and Harris saved a spicy one for the end. Chapter 29 is about insider trading. You might think it is simple: insiders trade on secret info, SEC catches them, they go to jail. But Harris shows that the whole topic is way more complicated than that. There are actually serious economists who argue insider trading should be legal. Let me explain.
In Part 1 we looked at how bubbles form and crashes happen. Now the obvious follow-up: can we actually prevent this stuff? Or at least make it less painful? Harris walks through the tools markets use to deal with extreme volatility, and the picture is more complicated than you would expect.
What does “good” even mean when we talk about a market? This is not a philosophical question. It is a practical one that affects every regulation, every rule change, and every debate about how trading should work. Chapter 9 is Harris building a framework for answering this question, and it turns out to be one of the most important chapters in the book.