The price bubble morphology

Abstract

Abstract The article presents a discourse on the mechanism by which price bubbles emerge and burst. For idealization purposes the author assumes that even though price bubbles emerge in various markets, their morphology differs from market to market, be it the hi-tech stock (or, more generally, the stock market), the real estate market (where land is of fixed supply) or the housing market. The sources of their diversification lie in the type and weight of the causes of their appearance, the differences between their causative and functional determinants and the market feedbacks. Any interpretation of the nomological diversification of price bubbles (in the sense of their categorisation) requires looking at the system pragmatics and the market in which they emerge. Thus the designations of economic systems and the specifics of markets constitute both the economic and the institutional environment of their origin. They also constitute the necessary context for their understanding and interpretation, as price bubbles rise and collapse within specific functional structures of an economic system.