ABSTRACT
The highly stylised comparison of these six sample crises occurring over time and across countries is suggestive of a complex relationship between episodes of crises and the underlying structure of both the economy and its financial system. While the broad similarities across episodes are derivative of the drive to accumulate and innovate in a financial capitalist system wherein credit may be endogenously created to support and promote such speculation, observed differences in crises stem from the differences in the specific economic and financial structure in which the particular episode occurs. Characteristic differences in the unfolding of these and other episodes include differences in the industrial or sectoral location of the initial innovation, the particular source and nature of the credit extended to support the speculation, the manner in and extent to which credit is endogenously created and the extent to and manner in which the precipitating speculation or subsequent distress spread to persons and spheres of economic activity otherwise unrelated to the initial innovation.
