Economic Bubble Machine
“Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In" The Onion - America's Finest News Source. July 14, 2008, Issue 44-29.
State Space Models
All state space models are written and estimated in the R programming language. The models are available here with instructions and R procedures for manipulating the models here here.
Monday, September 14, 2026
Thursday, August 13, 2026
Tech Bubbles
Aug 5, 2026 Every TECH BUBBLE since 1900 did this! Peaked at 41% concentration of the major players in the bubble.
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
Milton Friedman: What Caused the Great Depression
Uncle Milty thinks the Government caused the Great Depression. He's wrong. Here is my understanding.
Thursday, December 18, 2025
The Minsky-Kindleberger Framework
In a prior post on Theories of Great Depressions, the major input variable to the Systems Model was a "Shock". The shock could just be non-random "innovations" or it could be the outputs of some other system. Shocks themselves are "explained" by the Minsky-Kindleberger Framework, diagramed above.
During periods of Economic Stability, lending institutions start to expand credit. Expanded credit leads to more Speculation. When some trigger (shock) comes along (e.g., a bank failure, war, etc.) sellers panic sets in which leads to an Economic Crash, implementation of tighter Regulation and a return to Stability.
The Crash can be prevented if a Lenders of Last Resort (Central Bank, Governments, or International Institutions such as the IMF) step in to provide liquidity and soak up non-performing assets. The model seems to fit the 1929 Great Depression, the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the 2000 Dot-com Bubble, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis (2009-2018).
Notes
Perry Mehrling (2023) The Minsky-Kindleberger Connection and the Making of Manias, Panics, and Crashes
Wikipedia Links
- Stability Theory In mathematics, stability theory addresses the stability of solutions of differential equations and of trajectories of dynamical systems under small perturbations of initial conditions. In qualitative writing, stability is often used imprecisely, however, random deviations from the Attractor Path capture some of the meaning.
- Financial Crises any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. A broader reduction of economic activity affecting the whole economy is known as an economic crisis.
- Credit the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date.
- Speculation the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that that asset will become more valuable in a brief amount of time.
- Shock an unexpected or unpredictable event that affects an economy, either positively or negatively. Technically, it is an unpredictable change in exogenous factors—that is, factors unexplained by an economic model—which may influence endogenous economic variables.
- Lender of Last Resort a financial entity, generally a central bank, that acts as the provider of liquidity to a financial institution which finds itself unable to obtain sufficient liquidity in the interbank lending market when other facilities or such sources have been exhausted.
- Financial Panic a large-scale selling of an investment that causes a sharp decline in prices.
- Stock Market Crash a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a major cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper wealth. Crashes are driven by panic selling and underlying economic factors. They often follow speculation and economic bubbles.
- Financial Regulation a broad set of policies that apply to the financial sector in most jurisdictions, justified by two main features of finance: systemic risk, which implies that the failure of financial firms involves public interest considerations; and information asymmetry, which justifies curbs on freedom of contract in selected areas of financial services, particularly those that involve retail clients and/or principal–agent problems.
Bog Roll
- Did the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Cause the Great Depression? No!
- War and Normalcy: 1914-29 Post-WWI Euphoria led the a Speculative Bubble that was popped by the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
- What I've Learned About Bubbles: 2011-2012.
- Will There Always be Bubbles? Bubbles are deviations from an Attractor Path and could be controlled if Stabilizing Institutions could identify the Bubble starting.
- Should the Fed Pop Bubbles? Yes, but...
- This Time is Not Different. Debt Bubbles.
Summary
References
- Minsky, Hyman (1986) Stabilizing an Unstable Economy
- Kindleberger, Charles (2015) Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises What causes departures from the Attractor Path.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Technology Long Waves
The Kondratiev Wave is an important element of World-Systems Theory. The graphic above is taken from Andreas Goldschmidt and gives historical specifics for technological cycles. Goldschmidt's formulation allows for the idea to be tested (one of the models I always test), is partially consistent with economic Growth theory (particularly if we do not assume a functional form for exogenous disembodied technological change in the Solow-Swan Model) and I can present some examples.
- The Iranian Economy prior to 1979 and associated Tech Bubble.
Friday, October 10, 2025
World-System (1960-2100) Colombia's Globalization Bubble?
25 June 2026 Trump’s Heavy Hand in Colombia’s Right-Wing Victory. The U.S. president endorsed the right-wing winner. But his influence went further.
Notes
Wikipedia
- History of Columbia includes its settlement by indigenous peoples and the establishment of agrarian societies, notably the Muisca Confederation, Quimbaya Civilization, and Tairona Chiefdoms.
- Politics of Colombia a presidential representative democratic republic with a multi-party system, where the President of Colombia is both head of state and head of government. The national government has separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
- Economy of Colombia the fourth largest economy in Latin America as measured by gross domestic product and the third-largest economy in South America.
- Geography of Colombia situated largely in the north-west of South America, with some territories falling within the boundaries of Central America. It is bordered to the north-west by Panama; to the east by Brazil and Venezuela; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; and it shares maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.
- 2026 Colombia Presidential Election Incumbent president Gustavo Petro, elected in 2022, was constitutionally barred from seeking a second term. Abelardo de la Espriella narrowly defeated Iván Cepeda in the run-off election held on 21 June 2026.
- Demographics of Colombia Colombia is the second-most populous country in South America after Brazil, and the third-most populous in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico.
CO_L20 Measurement Model
CO_L20 AIC Statistics
CO_L20 BAU Model
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