In Austrian business cycle theory, this phenomenon is known as <i>malinvestment</i>, see <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.mises.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Malinvestment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.mises.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Malinvestment</a>, there are some historical bubble examples there.<p>The general idea, as I understand it, is that if someone invests and makes a ton of money, then other investors come in trying to do something similar to make a lot of money too, only what they are investing in is no good. But all the money creates a temporary illusion of an economic boom, which is what has been happening in the S.F. Bay area for some time now.<p>I&#x27;m old enough to remember the .com bust quite well. At the time the &quot;irrational exuberance&quot; (as Greenspan&#x2F;Shiller dubbed it) made perfect sense, and the ideas were fundamentally sound, the problem was that investors did not understand that it would take another 10-15 years to get to ubiquitous Internet, and the impatient ones got burned when the bubble burst.