My colleague Gareth Campbell recently gave an interview on Share Radio about the railway mania. Gareth explains the role played by high dividends, uncalled capital and overexpansion in driving the boom and bust in railway shares. You can access the podcast at Gareth's Railway Mania website. Gareth has written several seminal papers on the railway mania. He and I have written several papers on the mania, looking at the role of shareholders, managers, and the media in the railway mania.
According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money. George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here . Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.