Publication

This paper looks at the long-term economic and regulatory developments that laid the ground and created the motivations for a broad-based credit bubble that led to the global financial crisis of 2008. It looks at the role of the US economy, the effects of some previous crises, the deregulation of banking and the use of newer controls such as the focus on risk-based capital and the use of mark-to-market accounting. It also questions the role of central banks as lender of last resort.