Il ritardo dello sboom in Italia e C.M. Cipolla

marco---, 21/01/2009 11.57:

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Curiose teorie. Marco

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Carlo Maria Cipolla (Wikipedia) ... Nello stesso libro si trovano le cinque leggi fondamentali della stupidità: 1. Sempre e inevitabilmente ognuno di noi sottovaluta il numero di individui stupidi in circolazione. 2. La probabilità che una certa persona sia stupida è indipendente da qualsiasi altra caratteristica della persona stessa. 3. Una persona è stupida se causa un danno a un’altra persona o ad un gruppo di persone senza realizzare alcun vantaggio per sé o addirittura subendo un danno. 4. Le persone non stupide sottovalutano sempre il potenziale nocivo delle persone stupide; dimenticano costantemente che in qualsiasi momento e luogo, e in qualunque circostanza, trattare o associarsi con individui stupidi costituisce infallibilmente un costoso errore. 5. La persona stupida è il tipo di persona più pericoloso che esista. ...

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BUSINESS CYCLES PRIOR TO THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
(da Jesús Huerta De Soto: "Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles")

It would be impossible to cover here (even in condensed form) all cycles of boom and recession which affected the world’s economies prior to the Industrial Revolution. Nevertheless we are fortunate enough to have available to us a growing number of works on economic history which greatly facilitate the application of the theory of the business cycle to specific economic events from the past. We could begin by mentioning Carlo M. Cipolla’s works on the crises which gripped the Florentine economy in the mid-fourteenth century and in the sixteenth century, crises we covered in chapter 2.
Indeed we saw that Cipolla, following R.C. Mueller’s studies, documented the substantial credit expansion Florentine banks brought about starting at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
The result was a significant economic boom that made Florence the center of financial and trade activity in the Mediterranean. Nonetheless a series of events, such as the bankruptcy in England, the withdrawal of funds in Naples, and the crash of Florentine treasury bills triggered the beginning of the inevitable crisis, which manifested itself in widespread bank failure and a strong tightening of credit in the market (or as it was then known, mancamento della credenza).
Cipolla points out that the crisis resulted in the destruction of a great stock of wealth, and real estate prices, which had skyrocketed, plummeted to half their former value, and even such a reduction in price was insufficient to attract enough buyers. According to Cipolla, it took thirty years (from 1349 to 1379) for a recovery to begin. In his opinion a major role in the recovery was played by the disastrous plague...