Click here for a post by J. Bradford DeLong, where he argues that too much finance can be bad for economic growth. Although I might have a vested interest in making a counter argument, I actually believe that Brad DeLong might be correct. For sure, financial deepening has been an important driver of economic growth over the past two centuries (see here and here), but maybe the relationship between financial development and economic growth is an inverted U shaped and we are now on a downwards slope!
My colleague and former PhD student Gareth Campbell has created a website about the British Railway Mania - click here . This episode has been described by the Economist as probably the greatest bubble in human history. Gareth's website provides background on the Mania and posits some explanations for the 'bubble'. In his explanation of why the bubble happened, Gareth places a lot of emphasis on investor myopia regarding future dividends and uncalled capital. His study of investors during the episode does not support the view that this episode was fuelled by naive and irrational investors.
