Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/28954 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Citation: 
[Journal:] Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal [ISSN:] 1864-6042 [Volume:] 3 [Issue:] 2009-40 [Publisher:] Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) [Place:] Kiel [Year:] 2009 [Pages:] 1-22
Publisher: 
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel
Abstract: 
The author suggests that the 2008 financial crisis was the culmination of an accelerating and inherently unstable process of financial market evolution. He argues that markets are not well organized to manage the power that financial assets have to generate emotion and their wider effect on human imagination and judgement, anchored in neurobiology. Judgements and decisions about risk, reward and the evaluation of success can become systematically compromised because the excitement of potential gain is disconnected from anxiety about potential consequences, producing groupthink and bubbles. When anxiety breaks through, a catastrophic loss of confidence is inevitable. In the aftermath the emotional pain that would be involved in accepting responsibility stands in the way of lessons being learned. The author's theoretical framework is influenced by modern psychoanalysis and draws on an interview study of international fund managers in 2007. He suggests that underlying psychological conflicts have influenced the way market institutions have evolved to compete by selling the promise of exceptional performance. To cope with the expectations upon them, agents are impelled to base their actions on stories which overvalue opportunities and underestimate risks; this creates agency issues and facilitates the process of disconnecting anxiety from excitement that creates bubble potential. Policy implications go well beyond improving regulation and transparency.
Subjects: 
Financial bubbles
financial crises
group functioning
groupthink
market instability
financial regulation
psychoanalysis
psychology
JEL: 
G01
G18
G28
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Article

Files in This Item:
File
Size
165.06 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.