A contribution to the theory of financial fragility and crisis

The paper outlines formally three interrelated facets of a financial crisis of domestic origin: (i) a debt financed consumption boom supported by rising asset prices that ends in debt deflation; (ii) a related process of financial evolution of economic agents towards Ponzi finance; (iii) resulting systemic illiquidity afflicting the financial sector as a prelude to crisis. Being placed in relation to theories of exogenous and endogenous money, the models indicate how the co-evolution of the real and the financial sector results in financial fragility of different types. The paper explores formally the specific features of the fragility of various episode of crisis, which share a common pattern of gradual build up followed by a sudden collapse of financial confidence through the interaction between the real and the financial sector, and concludes with implications for policy.