Une analyse informationnelle de la crise financière récente

Relying on the recent literature, we propose an informational interpretation to the recent financial crisis. We adopt a twofold point of view. On the one hand, we analyze the difficulties associated with the inability of economic and financial agents to deal with information and with the lack of incentives for those market participants to search for information in the financial system. The disaster myopia hypothesis allows us to explain why market participants do not account for the relevant information. This assumption can illustrate the boom on the subprime market. Such a boom can also be interpreted in terms of an insufficient production in private information. Finally, the bust can be understood as the reaction of market participants to a situation of common knowledge about a bad fundamental state. On the other hand, we analyze the response of the authorities as an information provider to the difficulties of the market to internalize the negative externalities coming from the deficiency in terms of information treatment and production. We analyze the regulator?s responses to the financial crisis in terms of communication : with respect to banking instability, stress tests have been considered as a solution ; with respect to the management of expectations, central banks have increasingly used unconventional monetary policies. In both cases, the informational policy of the regulator plays a crucial role and strategically interacts with market reaction.