While the previous chapter highlighted the resurgence of Schumpeter’s concept of money in economic theory, this chapter focuses on three examples from recent economic history in which the interdependence of finance and innovation invokes a deliberate Schumpeterian interpretation. The first example is about the striking rise of modern venture capital in Schumpeter’s immediate geographical and intellectual environment during his years at Harvard, to which he contributed a consistent intellectual frame (also through his personal ties with people like David Rockefeller, Frank Taussig, or George Doriot). The second example addresses the recurrent instances of financial crises, in particular the Great Recession of 2008-09, and invokes a Schumpeterian interpretation mainly via the instability theorem of his student Hyman Minsky. Finally, we turn to the stream of innovations that relate to the increasing digitalisation of money ranging from cryptocoins to central bank digital currencies (CBDC).
