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Manias, Panics and Crashes pp 73–90Cite as

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The Emergence of Swindles

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Abstract

Excursion into swindles and other white-collar crimes perhaps takes us away from economic analysis of manis, panics, and the role of the lender of last resort. Nevertheless, it is inescapable. Commercial and financial crises are intimately bound up with transactions that overstep the confines of law and morality, shadowy though those confines be. The propensities to swindle and be swindled run parallel to the propensity to speculate during a boom. Crash and panic, with their motto of sauve qui peut, induce still more to cheat in order to save themselves. And the signal for panic is often the revelation of some swindle, theft, embezzlement, or fraud.

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5. The Emergence of Swindles

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Authors
  1. Charles P. Kindleberger
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  2. Peter L. Bernstein
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© 2000 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Kindleberger, C.P., Bernstein, P.L. (2000). The Emergence of Swindles. In: Manias, Panics and Crashes. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230536753_5

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