Reddit mentions of Pop!: Why Bubbles Are Great For The Economy

http://www.amazon.com/Pop-Why-Bubbles-Great-Economy/dp/0061151548

is an easy read about the benefits of bubbles. As I understand it in a quick summary, bubbles create an incentive to over-invest in capital and this over-investment in one area can create tons of opportunities after the pop for innovation and entrepreneurship that wouldn't have been able to happen if it were not for the cheap leftover assets the bubble made possible.

This of course doesn't mean that all bubbles are good, and doesn't mean that the bubbles are good from all perspectives, I'm sure investors that lost don't ever consider them to be good, and when the bubble involves some aspect of consumers (like housing) or is caused by government distortion (like housing) it might be difficult for silver linings to exist.

One example the book gives is about the telecommunications and fiber optic boom that happened in the late 90s that over invested in both land and sea based fiber lines. This bubble pop'd and the banks confiscated then sold off the lines for pennies on the dollar. Now suddenly you have thousands of companies (and consumers) that can take advantage of near zero cost communication to anywhere in the world, whereas without the bubble it may have taken decades to get that level of roll out which would have slowed over time as profits declined. Of course this isn't equally beneficial to all parties but as a whole for the economy I think you could argue its a positive impact.

/edit: heck housing bubble may have even benefited renters keeping rents lower since supply of unused housing was abundant.