Finally, in specification 19 we add 5 lags of the change in the investment-to-GDP ratio,

to explore the possibility that the nature of the credit boom might affect the probability that it ends in a crisis. For example, according to arguments heard from time to time, if credit is funding “productive investments” then the chances that something can go wrong are reduced—as compared to credit booms that fuel consumption binges or feed speculative excess by households, firms, and/or banks. Our results caution against this rosy view. Over the long run, in our developed country sample, most of the lags of investment are not statistically significant at the conventional level, and the only one that is actually has a “wrong” positive sign, suggesting that crises are slightly more likely when they have been funding investment booms as opposed to other activity. If this is the case, then the suspicion arises that when banks originate lending, they may be almost equally incapable of assessing repayment capacity in all cases, with investment loans having no special virtues, and possibly some vices.