The recent global crisis has sparked interest in the relationship between income inequality, credit booms, and … to a financial crisis in the US in the first decade of the 21st century as it did in the 1920s. Data from 14 advanced … crisis, but we find no evidence that a rise in top income shares leads to credit booms. Instead, low interest rates and …

(s) preceding the breakdown and the crisis. We also find boom-bust cycles as depicted in a basic Minsky-cycle, where financial … instability and the outbreak of crisis is a consequence of an unbalanced mix of hedge, speculative and Ponzi financial positions …