Misplaced Trust: How Positions of Influence Can be Abused in Managed Bubbles

Authors

  • Isabella Canals Students

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/pur.2024.51

Keywords:

Financial History, Empirical Analysis, Economics, Business, Historical Analysis

Abstract

This paper analyzes three of the most socially impactful and financially catastrophic managed bubbles in financial history, in order to understand their formation and guide future preventative legislation and market analysis. Through an in-depth analysis and historical comparison of the South Sea bubble, the Railway Mania of 1845, and the Dot Com bubble of the 1990s, historical parallels are established despite differing levels of existing market complexity. Furthermore, by understanding the key perpetrators of the three historical schemes and their contribution to the growth, manipulation, and collapse of the three bubbles, a generalized understanding of positions prone to financial manipulation can be better
understood. The main focus of this paper is placed on the manipulative practices of government and media officials, and comparisons between their actions and methods reveal similar characteristics in their relative schemes, which can act as indicators of fraudulent market manipulation in future bubbling markets. The main characteristics analyzed through the three schemes is the manipulation of authority, credibility, and public perception.

References

Complaint: Securities and Exchange Commission against Defendant Jack Benjamin Grubman (United States District Court Southern District of New York April 28, 2003). Retrieved from https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp18111b.htm

Cruickshanks, E., Hayton, D., & Handley, S. (2002). AISLABIE, John (1670-1742), of Studley Royal, nr. Ripon, Yorks. and Red Lion Square, London. Retrieved from The History of Parliament British Political, Social, and Local History: https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/aislabie-john-1670-1742

Esteves, R., & Mesencage, G. G. (2021). Private Benefits, Public Vices: Railways and Logrolling in the Nineteenth-Century British Parliament (Vol. 81 No. 4). The Journal of Economic History.

Feldman, A., & Caplin, J. (2002, April 25). Is Jack Grubman the Worst Analyst Ever? Retrieved from CNN Money: https://money.cnn.com/2002/04/25/pf/investing/grubman/

Hamashige, H. (2000, January 11). B2B Business Boom. Retrieved from CNNMoney: https://money.cnn.com/2000/01/11/smbusiness/b2b/

Hamashige, H. (2000, June 12). VCs Still High on Dot.Coms. Retrieved from CNNNoney: https://money.cnn.com/2000/06/12/investing/q_venture/

Lambert, R. S. (1934). The Railway King: A Study of George Hudson and the Business Morals of His Time. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

Littleton, C. (2020). A Trojan horse in the House of Lords? The South Sea Company and the peerage. The History of Parliament: British Political, Social, and Local History. Retrieved from https://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2020/01/09/a-trojan-horse-in-the-house-of-lords-the-south-sea-company-and-the-peerage/

McCartney, S., & Arnold, A. (2001). A Vast Aggregate of Avaricious and Flagitious Jobbing? George Hudson and the Evolution of early Notions of Directorial Responsibility. Accounting, Business and Financial History, 11(2), 117-143.

Mitnick, B. (2023, September). Lecture on Managed Bubbles. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.

Mitnick, B. (n.d.). Bubbles. Pittsburgh.

Odlyzko, A. (2010). Collective hallucinations and inefficient markets:The British Railway Mania of the 1840s. University of Minnesota.

Oranburg, S. C. (2022). A History of Financial Technology and Regulation From American Incorporation to Cryptocurrency and Crowdfunding. Cambridge University Press.

Quinn, W., & Turner, J. D. (2020). Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Reed, M. (2008, January 3). Hudson, George [called the Railway King]. Retrieved from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: https://www-oxforddnb-com.pitt.idm.oclc.org/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-14029

Robb, G. (1992). White-Collar Crime in Modern England: Financial Fraud and Business Morality 1845-1929. Cabridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://www.dt-audit.com/dosyalar/Kutuphane/3/Eng/[George_Robb]_White-Collar_Crime_in_Modern_England%28BookZZ.org%29.pdf

Shippen, W. (1721). Mr. Aislabie's Two SPeeches Considered; With His Trial at Large in both Houses of Parliment Wherein the Learned Speeches for and Against Him, in the Federal Debates are Faithfully Inferred to Which are Added, Remarks Upon a Scandalous Libel. London: A. Moore. Retrieved from https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:18285249$71i

Smith, A. (1848). The Bubble of the Age; Or, the Fallacies of Railway Investments, Railway Accounts, and Railway Dividends (3 ed.). London: Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, Paternoster Row.

Speck, W. A., & Kilburn, M. (2006, May 25). Promoters of the South Sea Bubble. Retrieved from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-92793

Stewart, T. (n.d.). The South Sea Bubble. Retrieved from Historic UK: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/South-Sea-Bubble/#:~:text=However%2C%20King%20George%20himself%20then,returning%20one%20hundred%20percent%20interest.

Teather, D. (2003, April 24). Star of Dotcom Boom Arrested. Retrieved from The Guardian:

The Dot-Com Bubble Burst (2000). (2021, September 29). Retrieved from International Banker: Authorative Analysis on International Banking: https://internationalbanker.com/history-of-financial-crises/the-dotcom-bubble-burst-2000/

The Journals of the House of Commons (Vol. 19). (1718-1721). Great Britain. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/sim_great-britain-house-of-commons-journal_november-11-1718-march-7-1721_19/page/2/mode/1up?q=expelled

The Late 1990s Dot-Com Bubble Implodes in 2000. (2019). Retrieved from Goldman Sachs: https://www.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/history/moments/2000-dot-com-bubble.html

The South Sea Bubble, 1720. (n.d.). Baker Library Special Collections and Archives, Harvard Business School. Retrieved from https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble

U.S Secutities and Exchange Comission vs. Henry McKelvey Blodget (United States District Court Southern District of New York April 28, 2003). Retrieved from https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp18115b.htm

UK Parliament. (2023). UK Parliament. Retrieved from https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/mps/

Venture Funding Snowballs. (2000, February 14). Retrieved from CNNMoney: https://money.cnn.com/2000/02/14/cashflow/survey/

Welbourne, D. (n.d.). From "Railway King" to Bankrupt: The Rise and Fall of George Hudson. Retrieved from The Press: https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/23430638.railway-king-bankrupt-rise-fall-george-hudson/

Downloads

Published

2024-04-12

How to Cite

Isabella Canals. (2024). Misplaced Trust: How Positions of Influence Can be Abused in Managed Bubbles. Pittsburgh Undergraduate Review, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/pur.2024.51