Finance, Investment and Economic Fluctuations

Recent outbreaks of financial instability have spurred new interest in the works of the late Hyman P. Minsky who made path-breaking contributions to our understanding of contemporary market economies. This book provides an innovative tribute to Minsky's work and sheds new light on the nature of economic fluctuations and financial instability.

Eric Nasica provides a contemporary analysis of the relationship between finance, investment and fluctuations. He focuses on the contributions of Hyman P. Minsky and, in particular, on his financial instability hypothesis. He also examines more recent models of financial instability, based on dynamic non-linear systems and asymmetric information, but finds that they are unable to account adequately for the behaviours of agents in situations of uncertainty and for the role of institutions in the unfolding of fluctuations. Minsky's theory of fluctuations accounts for these factors in the role of 'institutional dynamics'. Finally, the author compares fluctuations and finds that they have a similar approach to uncertainty and macroeconomic instability.

Finance, Investment and Economic Fluctuations will prove invaluable to scholars of macroeconomics and finance.