Jakob Kuelps · Phillips Academy Andover · Winter 2025

A Recipe for Disaster: How Change, Money and Behavior Create Financial Crises

Abstract

Financial crises from the South Sea Bubble to the Crash of 1929 have a common set of prerequisites, namely: novel change, easy money, and irrational human behavior. This paper argues that all three must be present to produce a sustained market panic; no single factor is sufficient to cause collapse on its own.

Keywords

financial crises South Sea Bubble Mississippi Bubble Crash of 1929 behavioral economics monetary policy

References

  1. Bruner, Robert F., and Scott C. Miller. The Panic of 1861 and the Advent of Greenbacks and National Banking. Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, 2018.
  2. Bruner, Robert F., and Scott C. Miller. The Panic of 1791: Hamilton's Reports and the Rise of Faction (A). Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, 2017.
  3. Bruner, Robert F., and Scott C. Miller. The Panic of 1791: Hamilton's Reports and the Rise of Faction (B). Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, 2017.
  4. Bruner, Robert F., and Scott C. Miller. The "Roaring '20s" and the Crash of 1929. Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, 2019.
  5. Bruner, Robert F., and Scott C. Miller. 1720: John Law and the Mississippi Bubble. Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, 2018.
  6. Bruner, Robert F., and Scott C. Miller. The South Sea Bubble and the Rise of the Bank of England. Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, 2018.
  7. Quinn, William, and John D. Turner. Boom and Bust: a Global History of Financial Bubbles. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
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© 2025 Jakob Kuelps. Published by the Andover Economic Review under a non-exclusive publication license; the author retains copyright. The repository's MIT license covers site code only, not article content.