Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Credit Booms Causes Financial Crises

Interesting article by Moritz Shularick and Alan Taylor that concludes that financial crises usually aren't the result of endogenous shocks, but of previous booms. They also note that after World War II, central banks have largely prevented deleveraging after booms, but that these policies haven’t led to less severe slumps. And they even acknowledge that central banks may have had a role in fueling booms.

The only serious flaw with the article is that the authors use only Human Minsky's theories to explain these facts, despite the fact that those theories are only consistent with some of the above mentioned conclusions, whereas Austrian business cycle theory is consistent with all.