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Odd Lots: How An Austrian Economist Explains the Tulip Bubble

Odd Lots: How An Austrian Economist Explains The Tulip Bubble

Odd Lots: How An Austrian Economist Explains the Tulip Bubble

Every week, hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Allowaytake you on a not-so-random walk through hot topics in markets, finance and economics.

The tulip bubble is the quintessential bubble. If you want to call something a bubble, just mutter something about tulips, and everybody will know what you're arguing. But what was the tulip bubble, really, how did it form, and why did it eventually pop?

To get a unique perspective on this historical episode, on this week's podcast we speak with Douglas French, an adherent of Austrian economics, and the author of a book on Tulip mania. He argues that like many bubbles subsequently, this historical episode can be traced to bad monetary policy, which encouraged reckless speculation.

 

To contact the authors of this story: Tracy Alloway in Abu Dhabi at talloway@bloomberg.net, Joe Weisenthal in New York at jweisenthal@bloomberg.net.