overview

orientation

tulips

steam age

jazz & plastic

property

fleece

inflections

snapshot

dotcoms

telcos

peaks

au bubble

actors

media

fiction

accounting

regulators

clean-ups

bubble 2.0?

sinobubble

subprime

landmarks

related
Guides:

Economy

Governance

Networks

eCapital

     clean-ups

This page considers aftermaths of the bubbles: the government agencies and commercial entities that seek to clean up the mess.

     winners and losers?

In discussing the digital economy we've suggested that it will be some time before substantial productivity growth across most industries is clear. Economists cited earlier in this profile have argued that the overall impact of the dot-com and telco crashes may have been overstated. However, it is clear that significant wealth was destroyed in Australia and elsewhere in the collapse of dot-com and telecommunication share prices.

As with past booms and busts, the identity of some winners is clear. These include lawyers (setting up and, alas, reorganising businesses), accountants, financiers and brokers. They also include service providers such as publicists, advertising agencies and the media, prospectus printers, caterers (accounts of promotional expenditure by Boo.com and its peers are suggestive) and vendors of Aeron chairs or expensive bibelots.

    next page  (bubble 2.0?)