Minsky's theories and the subprime mortgage crisis

Πλυθαίνουν οι φωνές που (μας) υπενθυμίζουν οτι υπήρχαν άνθρωποι που είχαν μιλήσει για τον κίνδυνο μιας γενικευμένης οικονομικής κρίσης πολύ πριν αυτή αρχίσει...

Παρμένο από το wikipedia, είναι το abstract της θεωρίας του Minsky, ενός εξαιρετικού οικονομολόγου, ο οποίος πέρασε τα τελευταία 10 χρόνια της ζωής του εργαζόμενος σε ένα think-tank, αποτέλεσμα του οποίου είναι και η θεωρία του γύρω από την κρίση ρευστότητας, τους παράγοντες που την προκάλεσαν (που κατ' αυτόν είναι ποιοτικοί και όχι ποσοτικοί) και τους κινδύνους που κρύβει η μακρόχρονη οικονομική σταθερότητα (ναι, η σταθερότητα!!)

Ακολουθήστε το ταξίδι του, έχει πολύ ενδιαφέρον!

Minsky argued that a key mechanism that pushes an economy towards a crisis is the accumulation of debt. He identified 3 types of borrowers that contribute to the accumulation of insolvent debt: Hedge Borrowers; Speculative Borrowers; and Ponzi Borrowers.
The "hedge borrower" is one who borrows with the intent of making debt payments from cash flows from other investments; the "speculative borrower" who borrows based on the belief that the appreciation of the value of the assets (e.g. real estate) will be sufficient to refinance or pay-off their debt but who does not have sufficient resources to repay the original loan, otherwise; and the "Ponzi borrower" (named for Charles Ponzi, see also Ponzi scheme) who relies on continually rolling over the principal into new investments.

In his own words

"Three distinct income-debt relations for economic units, which are labeled as hedge, speculative, and Ponzi finance, can be identified. Hedge financing units are those which can fulfill all of their contractual payment obligations by their cash flows: the greater the weight of equity financing in the liability structure, the greater the likelihood that the unit is a hedge financing unit. Speculative finance units are units that can meet their payment commitments on 'income account' on their liabilities, even as they cannot repay the principal out of income cash flows. Such units need to 'roll over' their liabilities — issue new debt to meet commitments on maturing debt. For Ponzi units, the cash flows from operations are not sufficient to fill either the repayment of principal or the interest on outstanding debts by their cash flows from operations. Such units can sell assets or borrow. Borrowing to pay interest or selling assets to pay interest (and even dividends) on common stocks lowers the equity of a unit, even as it increases liabilities and the prior commitment of future incomes. It can be shown that if hedge financing dominates, then the economy may well be an equilibrium-seeking and containing system. In contrast, the greater the weight of speculative and Ponzi finance, the greater the likelihood that the economy is a deviation-amplifying system.

The first theorem of the financial instability hypothesis is that the economy has financing regimes under which it is stable, and financing regimes in which it is unstable.

The second theorem of the financial instability hypothesis is that over periods of prolonged prosperity, the economy transits from financial relations that make for a stable system to financial relations that make for an unstable system. In particular, over a protracted period of good times, capitalist economies tend to move to a financial structure in which there is a large weight to units engaged in speculative and Ponzi finance.

Furthermore, if an economy is in an inflationary state, and the authorities attempt to exorcise inflation by monetary constraint, then speculative units will become Ponzi units and the net worth of previously Ponzi units will quickly evaporate. Consequently, units with cash flow shortfalls will be forced to try to make positions by selling out positions. This is likely to lead to a collapse of asset values."

Το link, αν θέλετε περισσότερες πληροφορίες: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_Minsky