Asset Bubbles, Unemployment, and a Financial Crisis

A tractable model with asset bubbles is presented to demonstrate that a financial crisis caused by a bubble bursting increases unemployment rates. A bubbly asset has a positive market value because purchasing the asset is the sole saving method for agents who draw insufficient productivity, whereas selling the asset is a fund-raising method to initiate an investment project. The presence of bubbles corrects allocative inefficiency, relocating investment resources from low-productivity agents to high-productivity agents. Accordingly, the presence of bubbles can promote capital accumulation and reduce unemployment rates. However, a self-fulfilling financial crisis would result in high unemployment rates.