The rise and collapse of Enron: financial innovation, errors and lessons

Abstract

Recent collapses of high profile business failures like Enron, Worldcom, Parmlat, and Tyco has been a subject of great debate among regulators, investors, government and academics in the recent past. Enron´s case was the greatest failure in the history of American capitalism and had a major impact on financial markets by causing significant losses to investors. Enron was a company ranked by fortune as the most innovative company in the United States; it exemplified the transition from the production to the knowledge economy. Many lessons can we learn from its collapse. In this paper we present an analysis of the factors that contributed to Enron´s rise and failure, underlying the role that energy deregulation and manipulation of financial stat.