In the wake of the U.S. housing bubble and collapse and the consequent financial collapse of 2007-2009 and its severe consequences for the U.S. economy, it is unsurprising that there have been calls for policy makers to prevent future asset price bubbles – through the better exercise of...

This article focuses on financial regulation and argues that the use of financial regulation to try to prevent bubbles is a mistake — a fool's errand. Bubbles are easy to identify after the fact but much harder (or impossible) to identify beforehand. In the absence of (the near impossible)...