Évolution économique et innovations financières : d'un processus créatif à une création destructrice

In the economic literature, it is often assumed that open and liberalized financial markets allow to a better allocation of financial resources to effective financing of productive activities. Thus, numerous works do not distinguish between financial innovations and Schumpeterian entrepreneurial innovations and then conclude that changes observed on the financial markets since the 1980s have contributed to the promotion of the economic growth. However Schumpeter does not give a accurate and specific analysis of financial innovations, different from that of the entrepreneurial innovations, though one can find in his works numerous statements advancing the role of the banking and financial system in the economic development. This paper proposes a study to fill this analytical gap. It shows however that the nature of financial innovations differs radically from the orientation of the Schumpeterian innovations. Recurrent imbalances for several decades seem to support the thesis that financial innovations transform the process of creative evolution of capitalism, studied by Schumpeter, in a phenomenon of destructive creation. Financial instabilities require then a renewal of regulatory schemes to direct financial innovations toward an evolutionary path which does not provoke economic crisis, destructive of growth and of productive entrepreneurial activities.