Misplaced Trust: How Positions of Influence Can be Abused in Managed Bubbles
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/pur.2024.51Keywords:
Financial History, Empirical Analysis, Economics, Business, Historical AnalysisAbstract
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
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Isabella Canals
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
- The Author agrees to digitally sign the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work.