One of the growth industries in Northern Ireland is television and movie production. For example, most of HBO's Game of Thrones is filmed and edited in Belfast. My colleague Graham Brownlow has recently spoken to the BBC about the Games-of-Thrones effect on the local economy - click here.
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.