The Fundamental Volatility of the Digital Economy as a Contributor to Financial Instability

In 2008, financial markets plummeted and took much of the global economy down with them. This was not, however, the only significant drop in the early twenty-first century. The decade began with the boom and bust of the dot-com bubble, or, more generally, of the InfoTech sector. Viewing the 2008 financial crisis through a wider lens that includes the preceding InfoTech boom-bust, one can draw conclusions about the nature of economic volatility in the information economy and about the tools of government to deal with such volatility.