What Financiers Usually Do, and What We Can Learn from History

This paper aims at presenting an historical perspective on some of the major questions raised by Hyman Minsky and his recent followers, in particular about the instability of banking practices and the diffusion of the "originate and distribute" model under the domination of securities markets. We will argue that, when dealing with these issues, one must take great care at distinguishing what is actually new and what is recurrent. Financial innovation is nothing new. Risk taking through financial innovation is not new either. Banks have been innovating constantly over the last centuries, and many of their practices that we consider as "traditional" have not always been so, and result from a long process involving trials and errors, each error usually resulting in excessive risk-taking and waves of failures. We point out that markets have survived these crises when they have been able to organize and build the institutional structure allowing the various interests involved to become consistent with each other.