A sad fact of recent economic history is that the average person has, through simple osmosis, become something of an expert on the subject of bubbles. Most of the gory details of the real estate and dot-com bubbles are widely known; ditto for the Dutch tulipomania, despite the fact that it occurred four centuries ago.rnFor researcher Andrew Odlyzko, however, what we think of as Bubbles Greatest Hits are in fact Junior Achievement larks compared with an episode from 1840s England. Wide-eyed investors ended up spending more than a quarter of GDP, the equivalent of $4 trillion today, laying vastly more railroad track than the country could reasonably afford.
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