Cam Harvey: Through the Noise
Fuqua economist Campbell Harvey gives his insights on pressing topics within the worlds of economics and finance.
Cam Harvey: Through the Noise
Is Today’s AI Boom Another Tech Bubble? Lessons from 1999
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Are markets experiencing another tech bubble, or is this time fundamentally different?
In the first episode of Through the Noise, Cam Harvey, Professor of Finance at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, discusses today’s market environment through the lens of the late-1990s tech boom. Joined by Robert Olinger, Assistant Dean at Fuqua, Harvey draws on his firsthand experience from 1999 to assess whether current concerns about overvaluation and AI-driven enthusiasm are justified.
The conversation examines five key differences between the dot-com era and now, including the nature of artificial intelligence as a productivity-enhancing technology, its broad impact across industries, stronger corporate fundamentals, and the role of institutional memory following past market cycles. Harvey explains why, while market corrections are always possible, comparisons to the 2000 collapse often overlook critical structural differences in today’s economy.