The Roots of the Financial Collapse: Going Way, Way Back

Harold Petersen ()
Additional contact information
Harold Petersen: Boston College, Postal: Dept. of Economics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA

No 760, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: The paper is based on a talk given in April 2010. It traces the roots of the recent financial crisis from development of the limited liability corporation, to separation of ownership from control, tax incentives for debt financing, investment bankers moving to the corporate form, government backstopping the lenders, and the failure of the quants. Finally, it considers the Minsky hypothesis, under which financial markets are inherently unstable.

Keywords: financial crises; limited liability; leverage; incentives; investment banking; corporate taxation; quants; Minsky hypothesis. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G01 G18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09-25
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp760.pdf main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:boc:bocoec:760

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill MA 02467 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().