financial crisis research paper topics

155 Financial Crisis Essays & Examples

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🏆 top financial crisis essay examples, 💰 financial crisis essay topics, 👍 financial crisis research paper topics, 🏧 exciting financial essay topics, 📑 financial crisis topics for essays, ❓ research questions about financial crisis.

A financial crisis means massive depreciation of financial assets. It usually happens in the forms of banking, currency, and debt crises. Though the issue is studied well, financial crises still occur in various parts of the world.

In your finance crisis essay, you might want to focus on financial management in turbulent periods. Another idea is to discuss what it takes to survive a global financial crisis. One more option is to compare various types of financial crises. Whether you are assigned an argumentative essay, analytical paper, or research proposal, this article will be helpful. Here we’ve collected financial crisis research paper topics, current essay titles, writing tips, and financial crisis essay samples.

• The financial system and its components
• The role of investors in the financial system
• Personal, corporate, and public finance
• Financial risk management
• Quantitative finance and financial engineering
• Behavioral finance: the psychology of investors
• Early history of finance
• History and development of money
• Experimental finance and its goals
• Mathematical modeling in financial markets analysis
• 2008 Financial Crisis in Dubai In order to address the collapse in the real estate market observed in Dubai in 2008, the Emirate’s authorities focused on elaborating stricter regulations on developers of the housing projects and on the buyers. 26 […]
• Impact of World Financial Crisis on the UAE Economy The decline in economic growth was reflected in the significant reduction in the country’s GDP. However, the profitability and growth of the sector reduced substantially in 2009 due to the following factors.
• General Electric and the Financial Crisis of 2008 Although GE’s success is often attributed to the significant amount of financial assets that the company has, it owes its survival through the 2008 crisis to the careful and well-thought-out plan of investing in the […]
• Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 in ‘The Big Short’ Movie Michael predicted that it would devaluate mortgage bonds and, therefore, decided to short the housing market, that is, to bet on the market crash.
• Apple and Hewlett Packard During 2008 Financial Crisis Though the general demand has not reached the level it was before the crisis, many companies have taken advantage of the rising demand and have made tremendous sales. However, the company has increased its spending […]
• Social Distancing, Financial Crisis and Mental Health The lockdown leads to the inability of people to go to the hospital for mental health consultation and treatment due to the anti-COVID measures. It is possible to talk about the spread of mental health […]
• Aspects of the 2008 Financial Crisis According to Eisinger, none of the participants in the story in the film had any idea of the coming crisis. One of the connections between the film and the textbook is that of corporate social […]
• Essential Points From the Financial Crisis The first important point on slide 10 is the failure to penalize the originator for passing the mortgage to the provider.
• Argentina and Russia’s Financial Crisis Investors’ loss of faith in the Russian economy caused them to sell their Russian holdings, lowering the value of the Russian rouble and raising fears of a financial crisis.
• Ethical Questions in the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis What followed was an investigation of the genesis of the crisis, which revealed that catastrophic failure in oversight, the systemic weakening of usury laws, and outright thuggery by banks and mortgage salespeople were the major […]
• The 2008 Financial Crisis and Housing Policies Under the State Department of Housing and Urban Development, the government introduced the Section 8 Voucher. The function of this voucher was to meet the gap between what the renters would get and the actual […]
• 2008 Financial Crisis from a Neoliberal Perspective While such a position seems reasonable, the overall adherence of the financial system, including accounting and auditing, contributed to the crisis due to the unbearable level of loans and fictitious assets dominating the business.
• Corporate Social Capital During Financial Crisis The credit crisis related to the mortgage problem in 2008 has been one of the massive financial issues of the world since the times of the Great Depression.
• 2008 Global Financial Crisis in Andrew Sorkin’s “Too Big to Fail” The book Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis and Themselves, written by Andrew Ross Sorkin, explores the events and consequences […]
• Financial Crisis in Greece It is doubtless that the value of money is essential in determining a number of factors like the stability of the economy and inflation.
• The Euro Financial Crisis Causes and Outcomes The involvement of the central banks of is an attempt to demonstrate that all the central bankers are collaborating. The Euro crisis has exarcebated the currency swap process as it is now more expensive to […]
• The 2007 Financial Crisis: Development of the Prices of Shares, Corporate Bonds and Loans The crippling of the financial system in the US and the UK in the period beginning late 2007 was a product of crippling loans.
• Challenges Facing College Sports After Financial Crisis When the housing bubble caused financial depression in the national economy, colleges and universities were some of the most affected institutions, especially because the state and federal legislatures were forced to cut funding, the major […]
• How Money Market Mutual Funds Contributed to the 2008 Financial Crisis While how the prices of shares fell below the set $1 per share was a complex process, it became one of the greatest systemic risks posed by the MMMF to the investors and the economy […]
• How Quantitative Models Contribute to the Financial Crisis The motivation behind this study lies in the desire to understand why and how the economies of many countries around the world, especially in the Middle East, have been shaken to the core by the […]
• Causes and Solutions of the 2008 Financial Crisis The current essay describes the causes of the Financial Crisis of 2008 and the solutions suggested by the Keynesian school of thought.
• South Africa’s Response to Global Financial Crisis Desire to the achieve objective that duly fulfils the needs of an individual while being disadvantageous to the majority of individuals led to the crisis.
• Manifestations of the Financial Crisis in Greece The bank which is also affected by the crisis will also exaggerate the cost of this operation and this leads to a loss on my side.
• Global Financial Crisis Impact on Multi-Nationals The credit crisis was linked to the sub-prime mortgage business. So as to encourage lending, the interest rates were also lowered credibly.
• Qantas’ Actions in the Financial Crisis Context The actions taken by Qantas in reducing their costs can be said to be influenced by the global financial crisis, where the decline of the number of passengers in September 2009 was 0.
• Prospects for Chindia After 2008 Global Financial Crisis According to the Australian business press, the recent economic growth achieved was a result of the relationship between itself and the two countries i.e. However, China experienced a hitch on its international markets especially in […]
• The Global Financial Crisis and Its Impact on Australia The collapse of key institutions in the US and other economies in the world has people scurrying back to the drawing board in a bid to rethink economic policy and regulation strategies.
• The Investment Industry in Kuwait Today (During Financial Crisis) One of the confessions was that the investment authority of Kuwait otherwise known as would not be in a position to provide financial support that would assist in the restoration of confidence that was already […]
• The Financial Crisis on the UK Economy Analyze the causes and the impact of the current financial crisis on the UK economy. Due to the above-trend growth in 2006 and 2007, activity needs to be slow.
• Financial Crisis Management in the United Nations A crisis can be defined as the perception of an abnormal situation that is beyond the capability of the business and its scope to deal with.
• Lehman Brothers and the 2008 Financial Crisis As a result, when the management of the bank expected assistance from other firms and the Bank of America, it did not receive the help it needed.
• Global Financial Crisis and Real Estate Issues The central point of the argument is that the real estate market in the US and the policy called “trailer park lending” was the main reason for the worldwide economic crisis.
• 2008 Global Financial Crisis: Crises of Capitalism? Although I had an idea of the possible catalysts of the 2008 global financial meltdown before watching the video, Harvey presented a clear report of the events that occurred before the crisis and put them […]
• Corporate Government During the World Financial Crisis The chairman is the leader of the board of directors while the CEO is the person who oversees the day to day activities of the company; each of them performs a distinct and critical role […]
• Corporate Governance During the Global Financial Crisis The chairman of the board of directors is the leader of both the board and the company whereas the CEO is the person who oversees the day-to-day activities of the company.
• Nucor Corporation After Financial Crisis in the US However, in 2009, the company made the largest loss in its history of $299 million; the loss was the first annual loss since 1966. The depreciated purchasing power parity of the people in 2009 is […]
• Global Financial Crisis and Its Ethical Causes The reason for this is simple the analysis of what had brought about this particular financial crisis and what accounted for the subtleties of its extrication points out to an undeniable fact that it was […]
• Economic Shocks and Financial Crisis in Kuwait At the year 2008, the intensity of the crisis was at the peak, causing oil prices which led to a decrease in production and drop in GDP of Kuwait.
• Financial Crisis of 2008 Economics specialists have argued that the global financial crisis of 2008 was caused by a combination of factors, including the abundance of cheap credits in the macroeconomic environment as well as counterproductive decision-making in governments […]
• Banking Instability During the Global Financial Crisis Though the combination of aspects that resulted in the banking instability in the course of the global financial crisis had never been witnessed previously, the shift from extreme risk-taking to fiscal chaos was a common […]
• Rotana Company’s Financial Crisis and Culture This statement can be seen as being true to the values of the company and how it addressed the issues caused by the 2008 financial crisis.
• British and Dutch Banks After 2008 Financial Crisis Many countries utilised the opportunity of the crisis to work on improving corporate governance and leadership to avoid similar crises in the future.
• The Global Financial Crisis and Its Impacts In addition, a case of a company is studied to evaluate the impact of GFC on a particular firm, and consider the capability of the firm to survive the crisis.
• The Global Financial Crisis and Its Effect The latest global financial crisis managed to restart a debate on the value of both the stakeholder as well as shareholder theories. This led to the managers being more attentive to the prices of the […]
• Australian Banks in the Global Financial Crisis To understand how Australian banks managed the GFC, it is essential to pay attention to the very structure of its banking.
• Financial Crisis and Great Recession Causality The financial crisis is typically viewed as a primary factor behind the development of the Great Recession. Instead, the financial crisis of 2008 can be deemed a prerequisite of the Great Recession as well as […]
• Financial Crisis in Ferguson’s “The Ascent of Money” By Ferguson, the main purpose of the historian is to relieve humanity from the financial illusions on the examples of the past.
• Global Financial Crisis and Regulatory Responses In the aftermath of the crisis, the government through the Federal Reserve embarked on a mission to restore these financial institutions to their original position.
• Reasons and Consistency of the Financial Crisis 2007-2008 The financial crisis that occurred in 2007-2008 is frequently defined as one of the major financial events at the beginning of the 2000s.
• The Shadow Banking System: Financial Crisis Source The so-called shadow banking system, comprised of numerous institutions operating outside the regulated banking system, has undoubtedly contributed greatly to the emergence of the latest global financial crisis.
• Financial Crisis and Its Impact on UAE Construction The determination of this research is to evaluate the enactment of construction corporations in the United Arab Emirates for the period of the pre and post worldwide eras of financial disaster, which is from 2006 […]
• 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and Its Consequences Beja explores the impacts the crisis had on these countries and the outcomes that occurred years after the end of the crisis.
• American Financial Crisis and Its Prevention The interviewee brings about the idea of bureaucracy and political aspects that contributed to the problem, highlighting the corruption and ineffectiveness in the government when bailing out the institutions.
• West Midlands Designers and Architects Ltd: Financial Crisis The second option, which is by merit, will favor the company’s future and also acceptable by a number of the current employees.
• Financial Crisis of 2008 and Consumer Behavior Although the main cause of the global financial crisis that began in 2007 was the bursting of the housing bubble, economists largely agree that the ensuing recession was the outcome of a combination of several […]
• British Airways Performance and Global Financial Crisis This paper analyzes the performance of British Airways’ leadership in the wake of the global financial crisis. BA CityFlyer, which is a subsidiary of the British Airways, dominates operations in the London municipality airport.
• Financial Crisis of 2007-2008: Laws and Policies Nevertheless, one should not assume that the absence of legal safeguards is the only factor that led to this crisis since it is necessary to consider the development of the economy and lack of internal […]
• Financial Crisis in Greece: Origin and Aspects This essay seeks to establish the nature and origin of the crisis, Greece’s advantages and disadvantages in the Eurozone, and Greece’s fiscal policy.
• Austerity Measures after of the World Financial Crisis That is why it becomes obvious that there is a great need in some austerity measures whose main aim is to overcome the results of the world financial crisis and guarantee the stability of the […]
• US Financial Crisis Hit and Its Economy Effect He is an economist and runs a column in the Atlantic magazine on financial matters in the U.S. The article is by Lee Don, a columnist, and journalist in the U.
• The 2008 Financial Crisis In September 2008, the two giant mortgage companies faced the danger of bankruptcy as they had guaranteed close to half of the total mortgages in the US.
• Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on the World The recent global financial crisis happened between the years 2007 and 2008 that was a serious threat to the financial markets in the United States and the rest of the world.
• Effects of Hedge Funds on the Global Financial Crisis The article titled “Do not Blame Hedge Funds for Financial Crisis, Study Says,” in 19th September 2012 issue of the The Wall Street Journal, attempts to remove the hedge fund from blame in the global […]
• Role of International Financial Institutions in 2008 Financial Crisis Even more disappointing is the fact that the financial regulatory standards that were in place were unable to anticipate and therefore avert the ramifications of the financial crisis before it happened as should have been […]
• Global Financial Crisis: Corruption and Transparency Due to the large number of the emerging markets, the global financial regulators lacked a proper mechanism to handle the situation.
• Managing Financial Crises In this line, the financial institutions would have distributed the risk to all the stakeholders. The involvement of many players in the management systems of banks makes it out rightly difficult to blame banks for […]
• ‘What Went Wrong? An Initial Inquiry into the Causes of the 2008 Financial Crisis’ Additionally, failures at the managerial group also resulted in the crash as it led to a re evaluation of the cost of the agencies by the investors.
• Training and Skills Development Programs vs. the Global Financial Crisis The Level of education influences the rate of unemployment in an economy. The increase in gross domestic products is attributed to levels of education and employment.
• The Worst of the Global Financial Crisis Is Still To Come Therefore, considering the numerous flaws that exist in the global economic system and the fact that, most governments have deviated from addressing the real causes of the global financial crisis; hence, formulate strategies of avoiding […]
• The Financial Crisis Impacts on East Asian States The policy response to the currency crisis later led to a crisis in the financial institutions. The financial crisis was similar to the crisis that hit Mexico in 1995 and the difference was only on […]
• States regulatory response to the current financial crisis Having been cited by the International Monetary Fund as the leading contributor towards the world economy in 2007, the onset of the financial crisis meant economic disaster to the state.
• Financial Risk Management: Based on the 2008 Global Financial Crisis While it is believed that the U.S.subprime mortgage market might have prompted the occurrence of the global financial crisis, the primary cause of the crisis was founded on the flawed institutional practices and the instability […]
• The global financial crisis of 2008 The magnitude and the level of disruption of the global economies have led to speculation of various causes that has contributed to its occurrence.
• Carolina Panthers Financial Crisis While it was expected that the team could lose its operating income because of the losses it went through last season, the team emerged as one of the teams that profited greatly in the 2010/2011 […]
• EU Financial Crisis: Risk Management Failures This is for example over- dependence on: the capability of managers to create returns.the merits of financial innovation in efficiently spreading returns and risks in the market, the sufficiency of data and models used for […]
• Public Discourse under the Financial Crisis in the U.S and Canada The number of people that lost their jobs, the number of companies that ran into bankruptcy and dwindled in self-destruction through foreclosures and closures, the amount of money that was pumped into the economy by […]
• Impacts of Financial crisis on Bahrain Impacts of financial crisis on the country’s economy have accelerated debate within the mainstream of economics and many market analysts have devised economic stimulus plan to confront the crisis.
• Effect of Global financial crisis on the Gulf Countries The financial crisis which hit the US in the late months of the year 2007 have over time spread to almost all other countries in the world.
• Cultural Change at Texaco and Financial Crisis The most important and influential challenge was the opportunity to solve the questions of exclusion and discrimination of the minorities and women from the company’s workforce in such high status posts like management.
• After the 2007-2010 Financial Crisis: Across the Chaos and Destruction to the Universal Order Because of the half-baked decisions concerning the integration in the Eurozone had been taken, the Great Britain had to sign the agreement with Brussels concerning the further economical steps, which is likely to drive to […]
• Global Financial Crisis Problems This paper discusses the problem created by the global financial crisis and assesses the viability of the courses of actions taken to counter the problem.
• Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2010 In particular, it has shown that many financial institutions are too much dependent on one another, and the collapse of one organization can result in the collapse of the entire system.
• Eurozone Financial Crisis Henceforth, an analysis is drawn of the causes of crisis in the Eurozone. In addition, the effect of this Eurozone crisis did spread to other countries.
• East Asian Financial Crisis Analysts have argued that the inherent problem with the approach in the region, especially in Japan, was primarily due to much involvement of the government in guiding the free economy.
• The Financial Crisis Causes: Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection The consequences were similar in most parts of the world with the main indicators being debt crises, high unemployment rates, a reduction in the number of home ownership facilities and the demand for the same, […]
• East Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98 However, the quick actives responses by the states in the region helped in the quick aversion of the crisis and its impacts on the region’s economy.
• American Financial Crisis It discussed the underlying causes of the crisis and the impact it has had on the economy of the United States.
• Short-term decisions lead to the emergence of the global financial crisis Over the years, since the great depression in the 1930’s, the role of management seems to have diverted significantly from expectations as illustrated by the global financial crisis.
• Spain’s Financial Crisis The disproportionate growth in the real estate sector, coupled with the expansion of credit needed to finance it, is at the basis of the economic imbalances.
• Global Financial Crisis Causes and Impacts After a number of years since the first occurrence of the crisis, it is still not possible to explain fully the impact of the global financial crisis because the economic emergency keeps on hindering and […]
• Minsky’s Economic volatility theory as an evaluation of Financial Crisis The modern Marxist, FSA, and organizational Keynesian perspectives associate the causes of the financial slow down with the implementation of the liberal development framework in 1970s when the “Accord of Detroit” development framework was ditched.
• The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 The two key sectors that take the blame for the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 are the financial sector and the real estate industry.
• Global Financial Crisis Initially, the collapse of AIG, the under-performance of Fallie Mac and Fannie Mac and the merging of the Bank of America and the Merrill Lynch were the start point of the financial problems in the […]
• Global Financial Crisis of the United States Mortgage Industry The deterioration of economies called for government to take fast and immediate measures to rescue their nations; the United Nations for instance had to make policies that protected its local industry from the adverse effects […]
• What Caused the 2008 Financial Crisis in the USA? The opposite trends in the cost of mortgage credit and the housing prices also made the home owners participate more in the market since the risk of default was much lower.
• The Global Financial Crisis and Capitalism for the Elite Rich This Ideology adopted by many if not all of the western nations upholds the private ownership of business and institutions and the owners of these entities are allowed to spread out as much as they […]
• The UK Banking Practice That Led to Financial Crisis Crisis of the magnitude that was experienced is a real threat to the economy of any country and it is imperative for people to learn as much as they can to avoid the circumstance that […]
• The effect of global financial crisis on Saudi Arabian economy The countries stability of the banking sector was also seen in the change in banking activities over the period of global financial crisis, the country recorded the worst banking growth rate in the years between […]
• The effect of the global financial crisis on political and financial risks The negative effects of the global financial crisis have been felt in most parts of the world i.e.in the advanced countries, the emerging markets and in the developing world.
• Global Trade During the Financial Crisis (from 2006 to 2010) Each of the major trade regions of the world seemed to concentrate more on a given branch of trade and give their outputs to the rest of the world.
• Global Financial Crisis Impact on Australian and World Economies After affecting the banking and credit sectors in the US, the global crisis slowly crept to other countries and in the process became a world crisis.
• International Finance. Main Causes of Recent Financial Crisis One of the specific factors that can be attributed to the recent international financial crisis was the loss on housing mortgage loans due to the decline of mortgage prices in the market.
• The 2008 global financial crisis Soros asserts that whereas the U.S.subprime mortgage market is believed to have prompted the current financial crisis, the basis of the crisis derived from the flawed practices and institutions of the current financial system.
• Benefits of the Old Fashioned Business Models in the light of Global financial Crisis The purpose of this essay is to establish the benefits and drawbacks of old fashioned business models in the light of global financial crisis with reference to Airdrie bank of Lanarkshire in the UK.
• The Recent Financial Crisis The financial crisis has been considered by most economists to be the worst crisis since the Great Depression as it contributed to the failure of major financial institutions in the U.S.and the decline of consumer […]
• Turkey’s 2000-2001 Financial Crisis The first crisis began at the early 90’s while the second began at the beginning of the 21st century. This led to the collapse of the exchange rate and the beginning of the country’s second […]
• The 1997-1998 Asian Financial Crisis This growth was associated with “inflow of investments, improvements in technology, increases in education, a ready supply of labor as people moved from the countryside to the cities to work in factories, and reduced restrictions […]
• Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on the Healthcare Industry The global financial crisis threatened to lead to the total breakdown of the global economy. The global financial crisis reduced the funding of that the healthcare facilities received from the government.
• Changes in Financial Markets and it impact on Recent Financial Crisis Due to the above reason, this study seeks to examine the reasons behind the changes in financial markets during the last 30 years and the role of these changes in the recent financial crisis.
• Argentina’s Financial Crisis: A Critical Review of Causes and Effects The unprecedented expansion in the country’s markets and economy at large was attributed to the rise in agricultural exports. The country’s economy was heading in the right direction following the introduction of the convertibility system.
• Cause of the Financial Crisis The reason for this is quite apparent it was namely the Democrats’ preoccupation with ‘combating poverty’ that resulted in passing of the infamous Community Reinvestment Act and in reinforcing its provisions through the course of […]
• Disadvantages of Developed Country (America) When 2008 Financial Crisis However, the scholars do not singly use this as a reason of terming a country as being developed but also adds on to the fact that people in that country should be having the freedom […]
• The Global Financial Crisis Every entity is faced with the inevitable reality of making financial decisions in the following departments; investment for instance where to open shop, dividends for example whether or not to pay and when, working capital […]
• Theories on Causes of Financial Crisis A financial system shock disrupted the situation and the prices of the houses fell and many people could not pay their loans.
• Wesfarmers Limited and the Global Financial Crisis In order to put into perspective the effect of the GFC, we shall study the profitability of the firm from 2007 to 2010.
• Regulation in the Financial Crisis 2008 While numerous claims have been put forth to explain the causes of the 2007-2009 financial crisis, there is almost a universal agreement that the major causes of the financial crisis was the combination of a […]
• The 2008 Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences Foster and Magdoff Perspective of 2008 Financial Crisis Foster and Magdoff theory that attempts to explain the 2008 financial crisis attributes it to broader factors of monopoly finance capitalism which is a function of a […]
• Ethical Aspects of the Financial Crisis Yet, they would agree that to some degree, the origins of the financial crisis can be traced to the immoral behavior of some individuals who attempted to maximize their own benefits of at the expense […]
• Is Globalization the Main Culprit for the 2008 Global Financial Crisis? Globalization has eroded the powers and the sovereignty of the state, the role of the state to regulate and to steer forward the economy has been largely ignored at the expense of the market, these […]
• The Importance of Ethics in Business in Light of the Recent Global Financial Crisis The lack of concern for the overall good of the society stemmed from the increase in equity-based compensation to top executives which resulted in the declaration that “the paramount duty of management and board is […]
• What Was the Biggest Financial Crisis?
• Did Financial Crisis Alter the Level of Competition in the EMU Banks?
• What Is the Effect of Financial Crisis?
• What Are the Three Stages of Financial Crisis?
• Did Firms Manage Earnings More Aggressively during the Financial Crisis?
• What Causes a Financial Crisis?
• Did the Recent Housing Boom Signal the Global Financial Crisis?
• How Can We Solve Financial Crisis?
• What Is Another Word for Financial Crisis?
• What Is the First Stage in Financial Crisis?
• Can the Government Take Money from Your Bank Account in a Financial Crisis?
• What Was the Worst Financial Crisis in History?
• What Caused the Global Financial Crisis?
• Did the Financial Crisis Affect the Market Valuation of Large Systemic U.S. Banks?
• What Is the Impact of the Global Financial Crisis?
• What Happened in the 2008 Financial Crisis?
• How Did the Financial Crisis Started?
• Did Family Firms Perform Better During the Financial Crisis?
• Did Investors Herd During the Financial Crisis?
• Did Relational Capital Matter during the Financial Crisis?
• Did the Asian Financial Crisis Scare Foreign Investors Out of Japan?
• Did the Financial Crisis in Japan Affect Household Welfare Seriously?
• Did the Global Financial Crisis Alter the Oil–Gasoline Price Relationship?
• Was the 2008 Financial Crisis Caused by Lack of Ethics?
• Was the Financial Crisis Caused by Bankers or Government?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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123 Financial Crisis Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

The financial crisis of 2008 was a turning point in global economics, bringing about widespread economic turmoil and impacting millions of people around the world. As a result, it has become a popular topic for essays and research papers in various fields of study. If you are looking for inspiration for your next financial crisis essay, here are 123 topic ideas and examples to consider:

• The causes of the 2008 financial crisis
• The role of subprime mortgages in the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on the housing market
• The role of banks in the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on small businesses
• The impact of the financial crisis on unemployment
• The role of government regulation in preventing future financial crises
• The impact of the financial crisis on retirement savings
• The role of the Federal Reserve in responding to the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on global trade
• The role of credit rating agencies in the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on consumer confidence
• The role of the stock market in the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on government debt
• The role of financial derivatives in the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on student loans
• The role of corporate greed in the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on income inequality
• The role of monetary policy in responding to the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on healthcare costs
• The role of the housing bubble in causing the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on the automotive industry
• The role of the European debt crisis in exacerbating the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on social welfare programs
• The role of the Dodd-Frank Act in preventing future financial crises
• The impact of the financial crisis on the gig economy
• The role of quantitative easing in responding to the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on government spending
• The role of inflation in exacerbating the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on college tuition costs
• The role of student loan debt in the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on retirement age
• The role of financial literacy in preventing future financial crises
• The impact of the financial crisis on healthcare access
• The role of income inequality in causing the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on consumer spending
• The role of the shadow banking system in the financial crisis
• The role of government bailouts in responding to the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on the renewable energy sector
• The role of corporate debt in exacerbating the financial crisis
• The role of financial institutions in causing the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on mental health
• The role of income inequality in exacerbating the financial crisis
• The role of government stimulus packages in responding to the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on the education system
• The impact of the financial crisis on the healthcare industry
• The role of the automotive industry in causing the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on government revenue
• The role of corporate greed in exacerbating the financial crisis
• The impact of the financial crisis on the real estate market
• The impact of the financial crisis on the banking sector
• The role of credit default swaps in causing the financial crisis

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Financial Crisis

• The Financial Crisis
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Articles and Papers

Monetary Policy and the Crisis

Historical perspectives on the crisis, what caused the crisis, the role of subprime mortgages.

• Possible Solutions

Financial Crisis Articles & Papers: All Topics

The articles and papers listed here cover aspects of the financial crisis and represent a range of opinions and analysis. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis does not endorse the views presented in these articles or papers.

The Crisis: An Overview

The "Surprising" Origin and Nature of Financial Crises: A Macroeconomic Policy Proposal by Ricardo J. Caballero and Pablo Kurlat in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium , August 2009

The authors discuss three key ingredients for severe finanical crises in developed financial markets. Then they offer a policy proposal of tradable insurance credits to address a systemic crisis.

Bank Lending During the Financial Crisis of 2008 by Victoria Ivashina and David Scharfstein in SSRN , December 2008

This paper documents that new loans to large borrowers fell by 37% during the peak period of the financial crisis (September-November 2008) relative to the prior three-month period and by 68% relative to the peak of the credit boom (Mar-May 2007). New lending for real investment (such as capital expenditures) fell to the same extent as new lendi...  

The Commercial Paper Market, the Fed, and the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis by Richard G. Anderson and Charles S. Gascon in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , November 2009

Since its inception in the early nineteenth century, the U.S. commercial paper market has grown to become a key source of short-term funding for major businesses, with issuance averaging over $100 billion per day. In the fall of 2008, the commercial paper market achieved national prominence when increasing market stress caused some to fear that,...  

The Credit Crunch of 2007-2008: A Discussion of the Background, Market Reactions, and Policy Responses by Paul Mizen in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , September 2008

This paper discusses the events surrounding the 2007-08 credit crunch. It highlights the period of exceptional macrostability, the global savings glut, and financial innovation in mortgage-backed securities as the precursors to the crisis. The credit crunch itself occurred when house prices fell and subprime mortgage defaults increased. These event...  

The Crisis: Basic Mechanisms, and Appropriate Policies by Olivier J. Blanchard in IMF Working Ppaer , April 2009

The purpose of this lecture is to look beyond the complex events that characterize the global financial and economic crisis, identify the basic mechanisms, and infer the policies needed to resolve the current crisis, as well as the policies needed to reduce the probability of similar events in the future.

Deciphering the Liquidity and Credit Crunch 2007-08 by Markus K. Brunnermeier in Journal of Economic Perspectives , November 2008

This paper summarizes and explains the main events of the liquidity and credit crunch in 2007-08. Starting with the trends leading up to the crisis, Brunnermeier explains how these events unfolded and how four different amplification mechanisms magnified losses in the mortgage market into large dislocations and turmoil in financial markets.

Economic Recovery and Balance Sheet Normalization by Narayana R. Kocherlakota in Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis , April 2010

Speech before the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce

The Economics of Bank Restructuring: Understanding the Options by Augustin Landier and Kenichi Ueda in IMF Staff Position Note , June 2009

Based on a simple framework, this note clarifies the economics behind bank restructuring and evaluates various restructuring options for systemically important banks. The note assumes that the government aims to reduce the probability of a bank’s default and keep the burden on taxpayers at a minimum. The note also acknowledges that the design of...  

Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties by Thomas C. Baxter Jr. in Federal Reserve Bank of New York , February 2010

Testimony before the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, U.S. House of Representatives

Facts and Myths about the Financial Crisis of 2008 by V. V. Chari, Lawrence Christiano and Patrick J. Kehoe in Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Working Paper , October 2008

This paper examines three claims about the way the financial crisis is affecting the economy as a whole and argues that all three claims are myths. It also presents three underappreciated facts about how the financial system intermediates funds between households and corporate businesses.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Involvement with AIG by Thomas C. Baxter and Sarah J. Dahlgren in Federal Reserve Bank of New York , May 2010

Joint written testimony of Thomas C. Baxter and Sarah Dahlgren before the Congressional Oversight Panel, Washington, D.C.

The Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet by Ben S. Bernanke in Speech , April 2009

The Federal Reserve has taken a number of aggressive and creative policy actions, many of which are reflected in the size and composition of the Fed's balance sheet. Bernanke provides a brief guided tour of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet as an instructive way to discuss the Fed's policy strategy and some related issues.

The Financial Crisis: Toward an Explanation and Policy Response by Aaron Steelman and John A.Weinberg in Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Annual Report 2008 , April 2009

The essay is divided into the four sections. First, what has happened in the financial markets. Second, why those events took place. Third, possible market imperfections that could produce turmoil in the financial markets and an assessment of the role they have played in this case. And, fourth, how policymakers should respond in these difficult and...  

Financial Turmoil and the Economy by Frederick Furlong and Simon Kwan in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Annual Report 2008 , May 2009

An overview of the financial crisis.

The Global Recession by Craig P. Aubuchon and David C. Wheelock in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , May 2009

Presents information on the percentage of economies around the world that are in recession, and offers comparisons with previous economic declines.

The Global Roots of the Current Financial Crisis and its Implications for Regulations by Anil K. Kashyap, Raghuram Rajan and Jeremy Stein in 5th ECB Central Banking Conference , November 2008

Where did the current financial crisis come from? Who or what is to blame? How will it be resolved? How do we undertake reforms for the future? These are the questions this paper will seek to answer. The analysis will have three parts. The first is a rough and ready sketch of the global roots of this crisis. Second, the authors focus in a more d...  

Interest on Excess Reserves as a Monetary Policy Instrument: The Experience of Foreign Central Banks by David Bowman, Etienne Gagnon, and Mike Leahy in Board of Governors International Finance Discussion Papers , March 2010

This paper reviews the experience of eight major foreign central banks with policy interest rates comparable to the interest rate on excess reserves paid by the Federal Reserve. We pursue two main lines of inquiry: 1) To what extent have these policy interest rates been lower bounds for short-term market rates, and 2) to what extent has tighteni...  

Lending Standards in Mortgage Markets by Carlos Garriga, in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , May 2009

Examines the mortgage denial rates by loan type as an indicator of loose lending standards.

Lessons Learned from the Financial Crisis by William C. Dudley in Speech , June 2009

In assessing the lessons of the past two years, Dudley focuses on five broad themes that are interrelated: Interconnectedness of the financial system; System dynamics—How does the system respond to shocks?; Incentives—Can we improve outcomes by changing incentives?; Transparency; How should central banks respond to asset bubbles?

Liquidity Risk, Credit Risk, and the Federal Reserve’s Responses to the Crisis by Asani Sarkar in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , September 2009

In responding to the severity and broad scope of the financial crisis that began in 2007, the Federal Reserve has made aggressive use of both traditional monetary policy instruments and innovative tools in an effort to provide liquidity. In this paper, the author examines the Fed’s actions in light of the underlying financial amplification mechanis...  

Looking Behind the Aggregates: A Reply to "Facts and Myths about the Financial Crisis of 2008" by Ethan Cohen-Cole, Burcu Duygan-Bump, Jose Fillat and Judit Montoriol-Garriga in Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Paper , November 2008

In reply to the FRB of Minneapolis article by Chari et al. (2008) the authors of this paper argue that to evaluate the four common claims about the impact of financial sector phenomena on the economy, (which the FRB Boston authors conclude are all myths), one needs to look at the underlying composition of financial aggregates. This article find ...  

A Minsky Meltdown: Lessons for Central Bankers by Janet Yellen in FRBSF Economic Letter , May 2009

In this essay, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Yellen reconsiders the notion of a 'Minsky Meltdown' and suggests that it is time to reconsider the notion that a central bank can not intervene in bubbles. Yellen also outlines her thoughts on supervisory and regulatory policies going forward, and the importance of varying capital req...  

Overview: Global Financial Crisis Spurs Unprecedented Policy Actions by Ingo Fender and Jacob Gyntelberg in BIS Quarterly Review , December 2008

A four-stage overview of the crisis. Market developments over the period under review went through four more or less distinct stages. Stage one, which led into the Lehman bankruptcy in mid-September, was marked by the takeover of two major US housing finance agencies by the authorities in the United States. Stage two encompassed the immediate impl...  

The Panic of 2007 by Gary B. Gorton in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Symposium: Maintaining Stability in a Changing Financial System , October 2008

How did problems with subprime mortgages result in a systemic crisis, a panic? The ongoing Panic of 2007 is due to a loss of information about the location and size of risks of loss due to default on a number of interlinked securities, special purpose vehicles, and derivatives, all related to subprime mortgages. Subprime mortgages are a financial...  

Preparing for a Smooth (Eventual) Exit by Brian P. Sack in Federal Reseve Bank of New York , March 2010

Remarks at the National Association for Business Economics Policy Conference, Arlington, Virginia

Putting the Financial Crisis and Lending Activity in a Broader Context by Kevin L. Kliesen in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , February 2009

This paper discusses how banks typically tighten credit standards and/or loan terms as the economy weakens and nonperforming loans increase. But an adverse shock from outside the financial sector can be just as important—such as a sharp increase in oil prices or a plunge in house prices.

The Response of the Federal Reserve to the Recent Banking and Financial Crisis by Randall S. Kroszner and William Melick in Chicago Booth School of Business Working Paper , December 2009

The authors present an account of the policy actions taken by the Fed, providing a narrative that brings together information that otherwise requires consulting a variety of sources. They also present a framework for thinking about the central bank policy response that gives the reader a means of organizing her own understanding of the response. A...  

The Role of Liquidity in Financial Crises by Franklin Allen and Elena Carletti in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Symposium: Maintaining Stability in a Changing Financial System , September 2008

The purpose of this paper is to use insights from the academic literature on crises to understand the role of liquidity in the current crisis. Allen and Carletti focus on four of the crucial features of the crisis that they argue are related to liquidity provision. The first is the fall of the prices of AAA-rated tranches of securitized products be...  

Speculative Bubbles and Financial Crisis by Pengfei Wang and Yi Wen in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper , July 2009

Why are asset prices so much more volatile and so often detached from their fundamental values? Why does the bursting of financial bubbles depress the real economy? This paper addresses these questions by constructing an in?nite-horizon heterogeneous agent general equilibrium model with speculative bubbles. We characterize conditions under which st...  

The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program--One Year Later by Ben S. Bernanke in Speech , May 2010

At the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago 46th Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition, Chicago, Illinois

The Taylor Rule and the Practice of Central Banking by Pier Francesco Asso, George A. Kahn, and Robert Leeson in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Working Paper , February 2010

The Taylor rule has revolutionized the way many policymakers at central banks think about monetary policy. It has framed policy actions as a systematic response to incoming information about economic conditions, as opposed to a period-by-period optimization problem. It has emphasized the importance of adjusting policy rates more than one-for-one in...  

Toward an Effective Resolution Regime for Large Financial Institutions by Daniel K. Tarullo in Board of Governors Speech , March 2010

At the Symposium on Building the Financial System of the 21st Century, Armonk, New York

A Word on the Economy (with audio) by Julie L. Stackhouse in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Educational Resources , September 2009

A powerpoint slideshow describing the subprime mortgage meltdown and how it relates to the overall financial crisis. Updated September 2009

“How Central Should the Central Bank Be?” A Comment by Christopher J. Neely in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , April 2010

The Reserve Bank presidents are fully accountable to our democratic institutions and the decentralized structure promotes healthy debate on monetary policy and regulatory issues.

Actions to Restore Financial Stability: A summary of recent Federal Reserve initiatives by Niel Willardson in The Region (Minneapolis Fed) , December 2008

This article provides a summary of recent Federal Reserve initiatives designed to reestablish normal credit channels and flows in the wake of the current financial crisis.

Activist Fiscal Policy to Stabilize Economic Activity by Alan J. Auerbach and William G. Gale in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium , August 2009

This paper examines the effects of discretionary fiscal policy in the current financial crisis.

Alt-A: The Forgotten Segment of the Mortgage Market by Rajdeep Sengupta in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , January 2010

This study presents a brief overview of the Alt-A mortgage market with the goal of outlining broad trends in the different borrower and mortgage characteristics of Alt-A market originations between 2000 and 2006. The paper also documents the default patterns of Alt-A mortgages in terms of the various borrower and mortgage characteristics over th...  

Asset Bubbles and the Implications for Central Bank Policy by William C. Dudley in Federal Reserve Bank of New York , April 2010

Remarks at The Economic Club of New York, New York City

An Autopsy of the U.S. Financial System: Accident, Suicide, or Negligent Homicide? by Ross Levine in Brown University Working Paper , April 2010

In this postmortem, I find that the design, implementation, and maintenance of financial policies during the period from 1996 through 2006 were primary causes of the financial system’s demise. The evidence is inconsistent with the view that the collapse of the financial system was caused only by the popping of the housing bubble and the herding ...  

Bank Exposure to Commercial Real Estate by Yuliya Demyanyk and Kent Cherny in Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Economic Trends , August 2009

As rising home foreclosures and delinquencies continue to undermine a financial and economic recovery, an increasing amount of attention is being paid to another corner of the property market: commercial real estate. This article discusses bank exposure to the commercial real estate market.

Bankers Acceptances and Unconventional Monetary Policy: FAQs by Richard G. Anderson in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , March 2009

An expansion and FAQ following on an earlier article ("Bankers Acceptances: Yesterday's Instrument to Re-Start Today's Credit Markets?"). Describes possible implementation of a Banker's Acceptances program at the Federal Reserve.

Bankers’ Acceptances: Yesterday’s Instrument to Restart Today's Credit Markets? by Richard G. Anderson in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , January 2009

This note suggests considering an old—not new—financial market instrument: bankers’ acceptances. Bankers’ acceptances are one of the world’s older financial instruments, used as early as the twelfth century. Bankers’ acceptances have a long history in the Federal Reserve. Bankers’ acceptances are an old idea whose time may have returned—but with c...  

Beyond the Crisis: Reflections on the Challenges by Terrence J. Checki in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Speech , December 2009

A discussion of the challenges facing the financial system and reform.

A Black Swan in the Money Market by John B. Taylor and John C. Williams in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper , April 2008

At the center of the financial market crisis of 2007-2008 was a jump in spreads between the overnight inter-bank lending rate and term London inter-bank offer rates (Libor). Because many private loans are linked to Libor rates, the sharp increase in these spreads raised the cost of borrowing and interfered with monetary policy. The widening spread...  

Central Bank Exit Policies by Donald L. Kohn in Speech, Board of Governors , September 2009

Kohn briefly underlines some aspects of the Federal Reserve's framework for exiting the unusual policies put in place to ameliorate the effects of the financial turmoil of the past two years

Central Bank Response to the 2007-08 Financial Market Turbulence: Experiences and Lessons Drawn by Alexandre Chailloux, Simon Gray, Ulrich Klüh, Seiichi Shimizu, and Peter Stella in IMF Working Paper , September 2008

The paper reviews the policy response of major central banks during the 2007–08 financial market turbulence and suggests that there is scope for convergence among central bank operational frameworks through the adoption of those elements that proved most instrumental in calming markets. These include (i) rapid liquidity provision to a broad rang...  

Central Banks and Financial Crises by Willem H. Buiter in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Symposium: Maintaining Stability in a Changing Financial System , August 2008

This paper draws lessons from the experience of the past year for the conduct of central banks in the pursuit of macroeconomic and financial stability. Macroeconomic stability is defined as either price stability or as price stability and sustainable output or employment growth. Financial stability refers to (1) the absence of asset price bubbles...  

Commercial Bank Lending Data during the Crisis: Handle with Care by Silvio Contessi and Hoda El-Ghazaly, in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , August 2009

A discussion of commercial bank lending data, inferences that can be drawn from the data, and some caveats about the data.

Confronting Too Big to Fail by Daniel K. Tarullo in Speech, Board of Governors , October 2009

Tarullo suggests that the reform process cannot be judged a success unless it substantially reduces systemic risk generally and, in particular, the too-big-to-fail problem. This speech addresses the task of forging an effective response to this problem

Conventional and Unconventional Monetary Policy by Vasco Cúrdia and Michael Woodford in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , November 2009

We extend a standard New Keynesian model both to incorporate heterogeneity in spending opportunities along with two sources of (potentially time-varying) credit spreads and to allow a role for the central bank’s balance sheet in determining equilibrium. We use the model to investigate the implications of imperfect financial intermediation for famil...  

Crisis and Responses: the Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis of 2007-08 by Stephen G. Cecchetti in NBER Working Paper (requires subscription) , June 2008

Realizing that their traditional instruments were inadequate for responding to the crisis that began on 9 August 2007, Federal Reserve officials improvised. Beginning in mid-December 2007, they implemented a series of changes directed at ensuring that liquidity would be distributed to those institutions that needed it most. Conceptually, this me...  

The Curious Case of the U.S. Monetary Base by Richard G. Anderson in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Regional Economist , July 2009

Recent increases in the monetary base are far greater than any previously in American history, surely a "noble experiment" in policymaking. Whether these policies can succeed—and without accelerating inflation—remains to be seen.

The Dependence of the Financial System on Central Bank and Government Support by Petra Gerlach in BIS Quarterly Review , March 2010

How much does the banking sector depend on public support? Utilisation of many support facilities has declined, due mainly to a fall in demand. Supply factors play a smaller, but not insignificant role, as governments and central banks have tightened the conditions on which certain support measures are available or have phased them out entirely. Ho...  

Do Central Bank Liquidity Facilities by Jens H. E. Christensen, Jose A. Lopez, and Glenn D. Rudebusch in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper , June 2009

In response to the global financial crisis that started in August 2007, central banks provided extraordinary amounts of liquidity to the financial system. To investigate the effect of central bank liquidity facilities on term interbank lending rates, the authors estimate a six-factor arbitrage-free model of U.S. Treasury yields, financial corporate...  

The Economic Outlook and the Fed's Balance Sheet: The Issue of "How" versus "When" by William C. Dudley in Speech , July 2009

Dudley comments on the economy and the economic outlook—where we have been and where we may be going. He suggests that the balance of risks is still tilted toward weakness in growth and employment and not toward higher inflation. He also discusses the impact of the Federal Reserve’s lending facilities and purchase programs on the size of the Fed’s ...  

Economic Policy: Lessons from History by Ben S. Bernanke in Board of Governors Speech , April 2010

At the 43rd Annual Alexander Hamilton Awards Dinner, Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, Washington, D.C.

The Effect of the Term Auction Facility on the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate by James McAndrews, Asani Sarkar and Zhenyu Wang in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Report , July 2008

This paper examines the effects of the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility (TAF) on the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR). The particular question investigated is whether the announcements and operations of the TAF are associated with downward shifts of the LIBOR; such an association would provide one indication of the efficacy of the TAF ...  

Effective Practices in Crisis Resolution and the Case of Sweden by O. Emre Ergungor and Kent Cherny in Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Economic Commentary , February 2009

The current fi nancial crisis is a painful reminder that the developed world is not yet immune to these devastating shocks. But while we haven’t learned to prevent them, we have learned some lessons about what is necessary to contain them once they begin and to limit the damage that follows. As policymakers worldwide focus on resolving the current ...  

The Fed as Lender of Last Resort by James B. Bullard in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Regional Economist , January 2009

Because our central bank has relied on the federal funds rate target for so long to guide the economy, many people think that the target rate is the only tool at the Fed’s disposal. As we are seeing in the current financial crisis, the Fed has other options. Most visible so far have been the lending programs that have been created in the past year,...  

The Fed's Response to the Credit Crunch by Craig P. Aubuchon in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Econoimc Synopses , January 2009

The Federal Reserve Board has used Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act to create several new lending facilities to address the ongoing strains in the credit market.

The Fed, Liquidity, and Credit Allocation by Daniel Thornton in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , January 2009

The current financial turmoil has generated considerable discussion of liquidity. Moreover, it has been widely reported that the Federal Reserve played a major role in supplying liquidity to financial markets during this distressed time. This article describes two ways in which the Fed has supplied liquidity since late 2007. The first is traditiona...  

The Federal Reserve as Lender of Last Resort during the Panic of 2008 by Kenneth N. Kuttner in Committee on Capital Markets Regulation Report , December 2008

This report examines the impact of the Fed’s unprecedented lending on its formulation and implementation of monetary policy. The first section provides some background on the Fed’s recent actions within the context of its role as lender of last resort (LOLR). The second outlines some of the ways in which the surge in Fed lending has affected the...  

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Federal Reserve Assets: Understanding the Pieces of the Pie by Charles S. Gascon in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , March 2009

This paper examines the composition of assets on the Fed’s balance sheet and groups them according to the objectives of the programs used to acquire them.

The Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet: An Update by Ben S. Bernanke in Speech, Board of Governors , October 2009

Bernanke reviews the most important elements of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, as well as some aspects of their evolution over time. With this, he explains the steps the Federal Reserve has taken, beyond conventional interest rate reductions, to mitigate the financial crisis and the recession, as well as how those actions will be reversed as ...  

Federal Reserve's exit strategy by Ben S. Bernanke in Board of Governors Testimony , February 2010

Statement before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. as prepared for delivery. The hearing was postponed due to inclement weather.

The Federal Reserve's Term Auction Facility by Olivier Armantier, Sandra Krieger and James McAndrews in Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Current Issues in Economics and Finance , July 2008

As liquidity conditions in the term funding markets grew increasingly strained in late 2007, the Federal Reserve began making funds available directly to banks through a new tool, the Term Auction Facility (TAF). The facility is designed to improve liquidity by making it easier for sound institutions to borrow when the markets are not operating ...  

The Federal Reserve’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility by Tobias Adrian, Karin Kimbrough, and Dina Marchioni in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , January 2010

The Federal Reserve created the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) in the midst of severe disruptions in money markets following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008. The CPFF finances the purchase of highly rated unsecured and asset-backed commercial paper from eligible issuers via primary dealers. The facility is a liquid...  

Financial Crises and Bank Failures: A Review of Prediction Methods by Yuliya Demyanyk and Iftekhar Hasan in Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Working Paper , June 2009

In this article the authors analyze financial and economic circumstances associated with the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and the global financial turmoil that has led to severe crises in many countries. They suggest that the level of cross-border holdings of long-term securities between the United States and the rest of the world may indicate...  

The Financial Crisis: An Inside View by Phillip Swagel in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity , April 2009

This paper reviews the events associated with the credit market disruption that began in August 2007 and developed into a full-blown crisis in the fall of 2008. This is necessarily an incomplete history: the paper is being written in the months immediately after Swagel left Treasury, where he served as Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy from D...  

Financial Instability, Reserves, and Central Bank Swap Lines in the Panic of 2008 by Maurice Obstfeld, Jay C. Shambaugh and Alan M. Taylor in AEA Presentation Paper , December 2008

In this paper the authors connect the events of the last twelve months, “the Panic of 2008” as it has been called, to the demand for international reserves. In previous work, the authors have shown that international reserve demand can be rationalized by a central bank’s desire to backstop the broad money supply to avert the possibility of an in...  

Financial Intermediaries, Financial Stability and Monetary Policy by Tobias Adrian and Hyun Song Shin in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Symposium: Maintaining Stability in a Changing Financial System , September 2008

In a market-based financial system, banking and capital market developments are inseparable. Adrian and Shin document evidence that balance sheets of market-based financial intermediaries provide a window on the transmission of monetary policy through capital market conditions. Short-term interest rates are determinants of the cost of leverage and ...  

Focusing on Bank Interest Rate Risk Exposure by Donald L. Kohn in Board of Governors Speech , January 2010

At the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's Symposium on Interest Rate Risk Management, Arlington, Virginia

A Framework for Assessing the Systemic Risk of Major Financial Institutions by Xin Huang, Hao Zhou, and Haibin Zhu in Federal Reserve Board, Finance and Economics Discussion Series , September 2009

In this paper the authors propose a framework for measuring and stress testing the systemic risk of a group of major financial institutions. The systemic risk is measured by the price of insurance against financial distress, which is based on ex ante measures of default probabilities of individual banks and forecasted asset return correlations. Imp...  

Further Results on a Black Swan in the Money Market by John B. Taylor and John C. Williams in Stanford University Working Paper , May 2008

Using alternative measures of term lending rates and counterparty risk and a wide variety of econometric specifications, we find that counterparty risk has a robust significant effect on interest rate spreads in the term inter-bank loan markets. In contrast, we do not find comparably robust evidence of significant negative effects of the Fed’s t...  

Getting Back on Track: Macroeconomic Policy Lessons from the Financial Crisis by John B. Taylor in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , May 2010

This article reviews the role of monetary and fiscal policy in the financial crisis and draws lessons for future macroeconomic policy. It shows that policy deviated from what had worked well in the previous two decades by becoming more interventionist, less rules-based, and less predictable. The policy implications are thus that policy should “g...  

Government assistance to AIG by Scott G. Alvarez in Testimony before the Congressional Oversight Panel, U.S. Congress , May 2010

Housing, Mortgage Markets, and Foreclosures at the Federal Reserve System Conference on Housing and Mortgage Markets, Washington, D.C. by Ben Bernanke in Speech , December 2008

Housing and housing finance played a central role in precipitating the current crisis. Declining house prices, delinquencies and foreclosures, and strains in mortgage markets are now symptoms as well as causes of our general financial and economic difficulties. The most effective approach very likely will involve a full range of coordinated measu...  

How Did a Domestic Housing Slump Turn into a Global Financial Crisis? by Steven B. Kamin and Laurie Pounder DeMarco in Board of Governors International Finance Discussion Papers , January 2010

The global financial crisis clearly started with problems in the U.S. subprime sector and spread across the world from there. But was the direct exposure of foreigners to the U.S. financial system a key driver of the crisis, or did other factors account for its rapid contagion across the world? To answer this question, we assessed whether countr...  

How Not to Reduce Excess Reserves by David C. Wheelock in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , August 2009

The author looks back to a simliar economic situation during the 1930s for insights into how to handle excess reserves.

How the Subprime Crisis Went Global: Evidence from Bank Credit Default Swap Spreads by Barry Eichengreen, Ashoka Mody, Milan Nedeljkovic, and Lucio Sarno in NBER Working Paper (requires subscription) , April 2009

How did the Subprime Crisis, a problem in a small corner of U.S. financial markets, affect the entire global banking system? To shed light on this question we use principal components analysis to identify common factors in the movement of banks' credit default swap spreads. We find that fortunes of international banks rise and fall together even...  

How to Avoid a New Financial Crisis by Oliver Hart and Luigi Zingales in University of Chicago Booth School of Business Research Paper , November 2009

This paper discusses the origins of the financial crisis in terms of risk, and then offers proposals for ways to fix the system.

International Policy Response to the Financial Crisis by Masaaki Shirakawa in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium , August 2009

A discussion of the future of international coordination between central banks in the wake of the current financial crisis.

Interview with Raghuram Rajan in Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Region , December 2009

An interview with Rajan discussing the current financial crisis and possible solutions for the future.

Is Monetary Policy Effective During Financial Crises? by Frederic S. Mishkin in NBER Working Paper (requires subscription) , January 2009

The tightening of credit standards and the failure of the cost of credit to households and businesses to fall despite the sharp easing of monetary policy has led to a common view that monetary policy has not been effective during the recent financial crisis. Mishkin disagrees and believes that financial crises of the type we have been experiencing ...  

Is the Financial Crisis Over? A Yield Spread Perspective by Massimo Guidolin and Yu Man Tam in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , September 2009

Our finding is consistent with some recent, substantial volatility in the U.S. corporate bond market and leaves open a possibility that additional, future shocks to default premia may have long-lived effects.

Lessons Learned? Comparing the Federal Reserve’s Responses to the Crises of 1929-1933 and 2007-2009 by David C. Wheelock in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , March 2010

The financial crisis of 2007-09 is widely viewed as the worst financial disruption since the Great Depression of 1929-33. However, the accompanying economic recession was mild compared with the Great Depression, though severe by postwar standards. Aggressive monetary, fiscal, and financial policies are widely credited with limiting the impact of...  

Lessons of the Crisis: The Implications for Regulatory Reform by William C. Dudley in Speech, Federal Reserve Bank of New York , January 2010

Remarks at the Partnership for New York City Discussion, New York City.

The Longer-Term Challenges Ahead by William C. Dudley in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Speech , March 2010

Remarks at the Council of Society Business Economists Annual Dinner, London, United Kingdom

Macroprudential Supervision and Monetary Policy in the Post-crisis World by Janet L. Yellen in Board of Governors Speech , October 2010

Speech at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Business Economics, Denver, Colorado

The Mechanics of a Graceful Exit: Interest on Reserves and Segmentation in the Federal Funds Market by Morten L. Bech and Elizabeth Klee in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , December 2009

To combat the financial crisis that intensified in the fall of 2008, the Federal Reserve injected a substantial amount of liquidity into the banking system. The resulting increase in reserve balances exerted downward price pressure in the federal funds market, and the effective federal funds rate began to deviate from the target rate set by the Fed...  

Monetary Policy and Asset Prices by Brett W. Fawley and Luciana Juvenal in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , April 2010

reminder that asset prices can and do run wild at rates capable of negative effects on real economic activity. Not surprisingly, this has reinvigorated debate over whether central banks should respond to asset price bubbles.

Monetary Policy and the Recent Extraordinary Measures Taken by the Federal Reserve by John B. Taylor in U.S. House Committee on Financial Services , February 2009

Written testimony before the Committee on Financial Services U.S. House of Representatives on monetary policy and the "extraordinary measures" taken by the Federal Reserve over the past 18 months.

Monetary Policy in the Crisis: Past, Present, and Future by Donald L. Kohn in Board of Governors Speech , January 2010

Speech given at the Brimmer Policy Forum, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia

More Lessons from the Crisis by William C. Dudley in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Speech , November 2009

Remarks at the Center for Economic Policy Studies Symposium

More Money: Understanding Recent Changes in the Monetary Base by William T. Gavin in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , March 2009

The financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007 took a turn for the worse in September 2008. Until then, Federal Reserve actions taken to improve the functioning financial markets did not affect the monetary base. The unusual lending and purchase of private debt was offset by the sale of Treasury securities so that the total size of the ba...  

Moving Beyond the Financial Crisis by Elizabeth A. Duke in Board of Governors Speech , June 2010

At the Consumer Bankers Association Annual Conference, Hollywood, Florida

On the Effectiveness of the Federal Reserve's New Liquidity Facilities by Tao Wu in Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Working Paper , May 2008

This paper examines the effectiveness of the new liquidity facilities that the Federal Reserve established in response to the recent financial crisis. I develop a no-arbitrage based affine term structure model with default risk and conduct a thorough factor analysis of the counterparty default risk among major financial institutions and the underly...  

Paying Interest on Deposits at Federal Reserve Banks by Richard G. Anderson in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , November 2008

The implementation of monetary policy in developed economies relies on three interest rates: a policy target rate, one or more lending (or, discount) rates, and a remuneration rate, the rate of interest the central bank pays on the deposits that banks hold at the central bank. In the current economic crisis, management of the remuneration rate has ...  

Policies to Bring Us Out of the Financial Crisis and Recession by Donald L. Kohn in Speech , April 2009

Kohn discusses the actions the government is taking to address our current financial and economic difficulties, focusing on the economic and financial problems and policy responses in the United States.

Provision of Liquidity through the Primary Credit Facility during the Financial Crisis: A Structural Analysis by Erhan Artuç and Selva Demiralp in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review , October 2009

In response to the liquidity crisis that began in August 2007, central banks designed a variety of tools for supplying liquidity to financial institutions. The Federal Reserve introduced several programs, such as the Term Auction Facility, the Term Securities Lending Facility, and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, while enhancing its open market ...  

Putting the Low Road Behind Us by Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin in Speech at the 2011 Midwinter Housing Finance Conference, Park City, Utah , February 2011

In this speech Governor Raskin shares some thoughts about the powerful impact the housing and mortgage markets have on the nation's economic recovery, presents some ideas to effect positive change in the mortgage servicing industry, and finally imparts a guiding principle that should help us find our way through the current struggles and drive the ...  

Quantitative Easing: Entrance and Exit Strategies by Alan S. Blinder in Federal Reseve Bank of St. Louis Homer Jones Memorial Lecture , April 2010

Blinder discussed the concept of quantitative easing, the Fed's entrance strategy, the Fed's exit strategy, and its implications for central bank independence.

Questions about Fiscal Policy: Implications from the Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 by N. Gregory Mankiw in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , May 2010

This article is a modified version of remarks given at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s policy forum “Policy Lessons from the Economic and Financial Crisis,” December 4, 2009.

Questions and Answers about the Financial Crisis by Gary Gorton in Prepared Testimony for the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission , February 2010

All bond prices plummeted (spreads rose) during the financial crisis, not just the prices of subprimerelated bonds. These price declines were due to a banking panic in which institutional investors and firms refused to renew sale and repurchase agreements (repo) – short?term, collateralized, agreements that the Fed rightly used to count as money...  

Reaping the Full Benefits of Financial Openness by Yellen, Janet L. in Federal Reserve Board of Governors Speech , May 2011

Speech at the Bank of Finland 200th Anniversary Conference, Helsinki, Finland

Reflections on a Year of Crisis by Ben S. Bernanke in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium , August 2009

The opening remarks at the Jackson Hole conference, "Financial Stability and Macroeconomic Policy"

Resolution Process for Financial Companies that Pose Systemic Risk to the Financial System and Overall Economy by Thomas M. Hoenig, Charles S. Morris, and Kenneth Spong in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Speech , September 2009

The Under current law, financial regulators do not have the authority to resolve financial holding companies and non-depository financial companies that are in default or serious danger of default as they have with depository institutions. Although the normal bankruptcy process is a very effective process for most non-depository financial companie...  

Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy by Olivier Blanchard, Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, and Paolo Mauro in IMF Staff Position Note , February 2010

The great moderation lulled macroeconomists and policymakers alike in the belief that we knew how to conduct macroeconomic policy. The crisis clearly forces us to question that assessment. In this paper, we review the main elements of the pre-crisis consensus, we identify where we were wrong and what tenets of the pre-crisis framework still hold, a...  

The Risk of Deflation by John C.Williams in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter , March 2009

This article examines the risk of deflation in the United States by reviewing the evidence from past episodes of deflation and inflation.

The Role of the Federal Reserve in a New Financial Order by Paul A. Volcker in Speech at the Economic Club of New York , January 2010

Paul Volcker's discussion of the role of the Federal Reserve in light of the Financial Crisis.

The Role of the Securitization Process in the Expansion of Subprime Credit by Taylor D. Nadauld and Shane M. Sherlund in Board of Governors Finance and Economics Discussion Series , April 2009

The authors analyze the structure and attributes of subprime mortgage-backed securitization deals originated between 1997 and 2007. Their data set allows us to link loan-level data for over 6.7 million subprime loans to the securitization deals into which the loans were sold. They show that the securitization process, including the assignment of cr...  

Shadow Banking by Zoltan Pozsar, Tobias Adrian, Adam Ashcraft, Hayley Boesky in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports no. 458 , July 2010

This paper documents the origins, evolution and economic role of the shadow banking system. Its aim is to aid regulators and policymakers globally to reform, regulate and supervise the process of securitized credit intermediation in a market-based financial system.

The Shadow Banking System: Implications for Financial Regulation by Tobias Adrian and Hyun Song Shin in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Report , July 2009

The current financial crisis has highlighted the growing importance of the “shadow banking system,” which grew out of the securitization of assets and the integration of banking with capital market developments. This trend has been most pronounced in the United States, but it has had a profound influence on the global financial system. In a market-...  

Should Monetary Policy “Lean or Clean”?* by William R. White in Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Working Paper , August 2009

It has been contended by many in the central banking community that monetary policy would not be effective in “leaning” against the upswing of a credit cycle (the boom) but that lower interest rates would be effective in “cleaning” up (the bust) afterwards. In this paper, these two propositions (can’t lean, but can clean) are examined and found ser...  

Some Observations and Lessons from the Crisis by Simon M. Potter in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Speech , June 2010

Remarks at the Third Annual Connecticut Bank and Trust Company Economic Outlook Breakfast, Hartford, Connecticut

Structural Causes of the Global Financial Crisis: A Critical Assessment of the ‘New Financial Architecture’ by James Crotty in University of Massachusetts Amherst Working Paper , August 2008

The main thesis of this paper is that the ultimate cause of the current global financial crisis is to be found in the deeply flawed institutions and practices of what is often referred to as the New Financial Architecture (NFA) – a globally integrated system of giant bank conglomerates and the so-called ‘shadow banking system’ of investment ban...  

Systemic Risk and Deposit Insurance Premiums by Viral V. Acharya, João A. C. Santos, and Tanju Yorulmazer in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review , October 2009

While systemic risk—the risk of wholesale failure of banks and other financial institutions—is generally considered to be the primary reason for supervision and regulation of the banking industry, almost all regulatory rules treat such risk in isolation. In particular, they do not account for the very features that create systemic risk in the first...  

Systemic Risk and the Financial Crisis: A Primer by James Bullard, Christopher J. Neely, and David C. Wheelock in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , September 2009

How did problems in a relatively small portion of the home mortgage market trigger the most severe financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression? Several developments played a role, including the proliferation of complex mortgage-backed securities and derivatives with highly opaque structures, high leverage, and inadequate risk m...  

The Term Securities Lending Facility: Origin, Design, and Effects by Michael J. Fleming, Warren B. Hrung and Frank M. Keane in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Current Issues in Economics and Finance , February 2009

The Federal Reserve launched the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) in 2008 to promote liquidity in the funding markets and improve the operation of the broader financial markets. The facility increases the ability of dealers to obtain cash in the private market by enabling them to pledge securities temporarily as collateral for Treasuries, wh...  

Three Funerals and a Wedding by James B. Bullard in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , January 2009

A discussion of three macroeconomic ideas that may be passing away, and one macroeconomic idea that is being rehabilitated.

Three Lessons for Monetary Policy from the Panic of 2008 by James Bullard in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , May 2010

This article is a modified version of a presentation given at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s policy forum “Policy Lessons from the Economic and Financial Crisis,” December 4, 2009.

The U.S. Financial System: Where We Have Been, Where We Are and Where We Need to Go by William C. Dudley in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Speech , February 2010

Remarks at the Reserve Bank of Australia's 50th Anniversary Symposium, Sydney, Australia

Unconventional Monetary Policy Actions by Glen D. Rudebusch in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco FedViews , March 2009

Glenn D. Rudebusch, senior vice president and associate director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, states his views on recent unconventional monetary policy actions. Charts are included.

United States: Financial System Stability Assessment by The Monetary and Capital Markets and Western Hemisphere Departments of the International Monetary Fund in International Monetary Fund, IMF Country Report No. 10/247 , July 2010

A forceful policy response has rolled back systemic market pressures, but the cost of intervention has been high and stability is tenuous. Comprehensive reforms are being legislated, addressing many of the issues that left the system vulnerable. Given the severity of the crisis and the many weaknesses revealed, bolder action could have been envi...  

Valuing the Treasury’s Capital Assistance Program by Paul Glasserman and Zhenyu Wang in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , December 2009

The Capital Assistance Program (CAP) was created by the U.S. government in February 2009 to provide backup capital to large financial institutions unable to raise sufficient capital from private investors. Under the terms of the CAP, a participating bank receives contingent capital by issuing preferred shares to the Treasury combined with embedded ...  

A View of the Economic Crisis and the Federal Reserve’s by Janet L. Yellen in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter , July 2009

The Federal Reserve has responded to a severe recession by developing programs to bolster the financial system and restore economic growth. The Fed has the tools to unwind these programs when appropriate, maintaining price stability. The following is adapted from a speech delivered by the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francis...  

Walter Bagehot, the Discount Window, and TAF by Daniel Thornton in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , October 2008

In response to the mortgage-related distress in financial markets, the Fed has implemented a number of new lending programs. Prominent among these is the Term Auction Facility (TAF), through which the Federal Reserve Banks auction funds to depository institutions. Under the TAF, depository institutions compete for funds by indicating the amount th...  

Would Quantitative Easing Sooner Have Tempered the Financial Crisis and Economic Recession? by Daniel L. Thornton in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , August 2009

The author examines the timing of the quantitative easing employed by the Federal Reserve.

The Aftermath of Financial Crises by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff in Harvard University Working Paper , December 2008

This paper presents a comparative historical analysis that is focused on the aftermath of systemic banking crises. This study of the aftermath of severe financial crises includes a number of recent emerging market cases to expand the relevant set of comparators. Also included in the comparisons are two prewar developed country episodes for which w...  

Banking Crises: An Equal Opportunity Menace by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff in Harvard University Working Paper , December 2008

The historical frequency of banking crises is quite similar in high- and middle-to-low income countries, with quantitative and qualitative parallels in both the run-ups and the aftermath. The authors establish these regularities using a unique dataset spanning from Denmark’s financial panic during the Napoleonic War to the ongoing global financial ...  

The Crisis through the Lens of History by Charles Collyns in International Monetary Fund: Finance and Development , December 2008

The current financial crisis is ferocious, but history shows the way to avoid another Great Depression

The Current Financial Crisis: What Should We Learn from the Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century? by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba and Timothy J. Kehoe in Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Staff Report , March 2009

Studying the experience of countries that have experienced great depressions during the twentieth century teaches us that massive public interventions in the economy to maintain employment and investment during a financial crisis can, if they distort incentives enough, lead to a great depression.

The Evolution of the Subprime Mortgage Market by Souphala Chomsisengphet and Anthony Pennington-Cross in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , January 2006

This paper describes subprime lending in the mortgage market and how it has evolved through time. Subprime lending has introduced a substantial amount of risk-based pricing into the mortgage market by creating a myriad of prices and product choices largely determined by borrower credit history (mortgage and rental payments, foreclosures and bankru...  

Financial Statistics for the United States and the Crisis: What Did They Get Right, What Did They Miss, and How Should They Change? by Matthew J. Eichner, Donald L. Kohn, and Michael G. Palumbo in Board of Governors Finance and Economics Discussion Series , April 2010

Although the instruments and transactions most closely associated with the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 were novel, the underlying themes that played out in the crisis were familiar from previous episodes: Competitive dynamics resulted in excessive leverage and risktaking by large, interconnected firms, in heavy reliance on short-term sourc...  

The Global Credit Crisis as History by Barry Eichengreen in University of California Berkeley Polcy Paper , December 2008

During the Great Depression the Fed waited too long to execute its responsibilities as a lender of last resort, thus allowing the banking system to collapse. This time, there has been little hesitation on the part of the Fed to act, which leaves two questions: Why, given that this is a global credit crisis, have policy makers in other countries fai...  

An Historical Perspective on the Crisis of 2007-2008 by Michael D. Bordo in Bank of Chile Conference , November 2008

The current international financial crisis is part of a perennial pattern. Today’s events have echoes in earlier big international financial crises which were triggered by events in the U.S. financial system. Examples include the crises of 1857,1893, 1907 and 1929-1933. This crisis has many similarities to those of the past but also some important ...  

Slapped in the Face by the Invisible Hand: Banking and the Panic of 2007 by Gary B. Gorton in SSRN Paper , May 2009

The 'shadow banking system' at the heart of the current credit crisis is, in fact, a real banking system – and is vulnerable to a banking panic. Indeed, the events starting in August 2007 are a banking panic. A banking panic is a systemic event because the banking system cannot honor its obligations and is insolvent. Unlike the historical banking p...  

Stock-Market Crashes and Depressions by Robert J. Barro and José F. Ursúa in NBER Working Paper (requires subscription) , February 2009

Long-term data for 25 countries up to 2006 reveal 195 stock-market crashes (multi-year real returns of -25% or less) and 84 depressions (multi-year macroeconomic declines of 10% or more), with 58 of the cases matched by timing. The United States has two of the matched events--the Great Depression 1929-33 and the post-WWI years 1917-21, likely drive...  

Systemic Banking Crisis: A New Database by Luc Laeven and Fabian Valencia in IMF Working Paper , November 2008

This paper presents a new database on the timing of systemic banking crises and policy responses to resolve them. The database covers the universe of systemic banking crises for the period 1970-2007, with detailed data on crisis containment and resolution policies for 42 crisis episodes, and also includes data on the timing of currency crises and s...  

This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff in Harvard University Working Paper , April 2008

This paper offers a “panoramic” analysis of the history of financial crises dating from England’s fourteenth-century default to the current United States sub-prime financial crisis. Our study is based on a new dataset that spans all regions. It incorporates a number of important credit episodes seldom covered in the literature, including for exampl...  

Using Monetary Policy to Stabilize Economic Activity by Carl E. Walsh in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium , August 2009

This essay examines the role of monetary policy in stabilizing real economic activity. The author discusses the consensus on monetary policy that developed over the last twenty years. He then examines monetary policy when the policy interest rate has fallen to zero. The paper also assess issues relevant for post-crisis monetary policy.

Where We Go from Here: The Crisis and Beyond by Richard W. Fisher in Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Speech , March 2010

Remarks before the Eller College of Management, University of Arizona

Booms and Busts: The Case of Subprime Mortgages by Edward M. Gramlich in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Review , September 2007

Booms and busts have played a prominent role in American economic history. In the 19th century, the United States benefited from the canal boom, the railroad boom, the minerals boom, and a financial boom. The 20th century brought another financial boom, a postwar boom, and a dot-com boom. The details differed, but each of these cases featured init...  

Central Bank Tools and Liquidity Shortages by Stephen G. Cecchetti and Piti Disyatat in Federarl Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review , October 2009

The global financial crisis that began in mid-2007 has renewed concerns about financial instability and focused attention on the fundamental role of central banks in preventing and managing systemic crises. In response to the turmoil, central banks have made extensive use of both new and existing tools for supplying central bank money to financial ...  

Changes in the U.S. Financial System and the Subprime Crisis by Jan Kregel in Levy Economics Institute Working Paper , April 2008

The paper provides a background to the forces that have produced the present system of residential housing finance, the reasons for the current crisis in mortgage financing, and the impact of the crisis on the overall financial system.

The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Default Crisis by Atif R. Mian, Amir Sufi in SSRN Working Paper , December 2008

We conduct a within-county analysis using detailed zip code level data to document new findings regarding the origins of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The recent sharp increase in mortgage defaults is significantly amplified in subprime zip codes, or zip codes with a disproportionately large share of subprime borrowers as...  

Counterparty Risk in the Over-The-Counter Derivatives Market by Miguel A. Segoviano and Manmohan Singh in IMF Working Paper , November 2008

The financial market turmoil of recent months has highlighted the importance of counterparty risk. Here, we discuss counterparty risk that may stem from the OTC derivatives markets and attempt to assess the scope of potential cascade effects. This risk is measured by losses to the financial system that may result via the OTC derivative contracts fr...  

The Credit Crisis and Cycle Proof Regulation by Raghuram G. Rajan in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , September 2009

Rajan offers what he called "cycle proof regulation" to help head off a future crisis. Among other things, he proposed: -Highly leveraged financial institutions would be required to buy fully collateralized insurance. This insurance would inject contingent capital into those institutions when they're in trouble. -Financial institutions considered...  

The Credit Crisis: Conjectures about Causes and Remedies by Douglas W. Diamond and Raghuram G. Rajan in AEA Presentation Paper , December 2008

What caused the financial crisis that is sweeping across the world? What keeps asset prices and lending depressed? What can be done to remedy matters? While it is too early to arrive at definite answers to these questions, the focus of this paper is to offer offer informed conjectures.

Did Credit Scores Predict the Subprime Crisis? by Yuliya Demyanyk in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Regional Economist , October 2008

One might expect to find a connection between borrowers' FICO scores and the incidence of default and foreclosure during the current crisis. The data don't show such a cause and effect, however.

Did Prepayments Sustain the Subprime Market? by Geetesh Bhardwaj and Rajdeep Sengupta in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper , October 2008

This paper demonstrates that the reason for widespread default of mortgages in the subprime market was a sudden reversal in the house price appreciation of the early 2000's. Using loan-level data on subprime mortgages, we observe that the majority of subprime loans were hybrid adjustable rate mortgages, designed to impose substantial financial ...  

The Fed's Expanded Balance Sheet by Brian P. Sack in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Speech , December 2009

The Fed’s balance sheet has moved to the forefront of its policy efforts. Accordingly, to understand the policy choices that lie ahead for the Federal Reserve, one has to understand how the balance sheet got to where it is and what effects it has had on financial markets.

Financial Crises and Economic Activity by Stephen G. Cecchetti, Marion Kohler and Christian Upper in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium , August 2009

The authors use historical data to examine past systemic banking crises and compare them to the current crisis. They also look at the long-term effects of a crisis on economic output.

The Financial Crisis and the Policy Response: An Empirical Analysis of What Went Wrong by John B. Taylor in Stanford University Working Paper , November 2008

This paper is an empirical investigation of the role of government actions and interventions in the financial crisis that flared up in August 2007.

Financial Reform or Financial Dementia? by Richard W. Fisher in Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Speech , June 2010

Remarks at the SW Graduate School of Banking 53rd Annual Keynote Address and Banquet

Fixing Finance: A Roadmap for Reform by Robert E. Litan and Martin N. Baily in Brookings Institution , February 2009

This paper suggests a roadmap for reform of the financial system. The authors suggest that the guiding principles should be market discipline and sound regulation, and provide a detailed outline for changes in financial policy.

Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier? by Raghuram G. Rajan in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Symposium: The Greenspan Era: Lessons for the Future , August 2005

This paper (written pre-crisis in 2005) examines the revolutionary changes in financial systems around the world, such as greater borrowing at lower rates, the multitude of investment options catering to every possible profile of risk and return, and the ability to share risks with strangers from across the globe. The author questions the costs of...  

Has the Recent Real Estate Bubble Biased the Output Gap? by Chanont Banternghansa and Adrian Peralta-Alva in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , December 2009

The authors offer a word of caution to policymakers: Policies based on point estimates of the output gap may not rest on solid ground.

Hedge Funds, Systemic Risk, and the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 by Andrew W. Lo in U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform , November 2008

This article is the written testimony of Andrew Lo on the role of hedge funds in the U.S. financial system and their regulation. For the preliminary transcript, see http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20081114143312.pdf

The Information Value of the Stress Test and Bank Opacity by Stavros Peristiani, Donald P. Morgan, and Vanessa Savino in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports, no. 460 , July 2010

We investigate whether the “stress test,” the extraordinary examination of the nineteen largest U.S. bank holding companies conducted by federal bank supervisors in 2009, produced information demanded by the market. Using standard event study techniques, we find that the market had largely deciphered on its own which banks would have capital ga...  

Lessons for the Future from the Financial Crisis by Eric S. Rosengren in Speech before Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association Annual Meeting , December 2009

In a storytelling format, Rosengren explains why it was necessary to “bail out” certain firms – like AIG – and what this story teaches us about avoiding such necessities in the future. Also, why the Federal Reserve took such aggressive action to dramatically expand its balance sheet to address the crisis – and what implications and effects we expe...  

Making Sense of the Subprime Crisis by Kristopher S. Gerardi, Andreas Lehnert, Shane M. Sherland, and Paul S. Willen in Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Paper , December 2008

This paper explores the question of whether market participants could have or should have anticipated the large increase in foreclosures that occurred in 2007 and 2008. Most of these foreclosures stem from loans originated in 2005 and 2006, leading many to suspect that lenders originated a large volume of extremely risky loans during this period. ...  

Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble by Ben S. Bernanke in Board of Governors Speech , January 2010

Speech given at the Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, Atlanta, Georgia

Quick Exits of Subprime Mortgages by Yuliya S. Demyanyk in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , March 2009

All holders of mortgage contracts, regardless of type, have three options: keep their payments current, prepay (usually through refinancing), or default on the loan. The latter two options terminate the loan. The termination rates of subprime mortgages that originated each year from 2001 through 2006 are surprisingly similar: about 20, 50, and 8...  

Regulation and Its Discontents by Kevin Warsh in Board of Governors Speech , February 2010

At the New York Association for Business Economics, New York, New York

Rethinking Capital Regulation by Anil K. Kashyap, Raghuram G. Rajan and Jeremy C. Stein in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Symposium: Maintaining Stability in a Changing Financial System , September 2008

Recent estimates suggest that U.S. banks and investment banks may lose up to $250 billion from their exposure to residential mortgages securities. The resulting depletion of capital has led to unprecedented disruptions in the market for interbank funds and to sharp contractions in credit supply, with adverse consequences for the larger economy. A n...  

The Rise in Mortgage Defaults by Chris Mayer, Karen Pence and Shane M. Sherlund in Federal Reserve Board Finance and Economics Discussion Series , November 2008

The main factors underlying the rise in mortgage defaults appear to be declines in house prices and deteriorated underwriting standards, in particular an increase in loan-to-value ratios and in the share of mortgages with little or no documentation of income.

The Subprime Crisis: Cause, Effect and Consequences by R. Christopher Whalen in SSRN Working Paper , June 2008

Despite the considerable media attention given to the collapse of the market for complex structured assets that contain subprime mortgages, there has been too little discussion of why this crisis occurred. The Subprime Crisis: Cause, Effect and Consequences argues that three basic issues are at the root of the problem, the first of which is an odio...  

Subprime Facts: What (We Think) We Know about the Subprime Crisis and What We Don't by Christopher L. Foote, Kristopher Gerardi, Lorenz Goette and Paul S. Willen in Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Public Policy Discussion Paper , May 2008

Using a variety of datasets, the authors document some basic facts about the current subprime crisis. Many of these facts are applicable to the crisis at a national level, while some illustrate problems relevant only to Massachusetts and New England. The authors conclude by discussing some outstanding questions about which the data, which they beli...  

Subprime Lending and Real Estate Markets by Susan M. Wachter, Andrey D. Pavlov, and Zoltan Pozsar in SSRN Working Paper , December 2008

The recent credit crunch, and liquidity deterioration, in the mortgage market have led to falling house prices and foreclosure levels unprecedented since the Great Depression. A critical factor in the post-2003 house price bubble was the interaction of financial engineering and the deteriorating lending standards in real estate markets, which fed o...  

Subprime Outcomes: Risky Mortgages, Homeownership Experiences, and Foreclosures by Kristopher Gerardi, Adam Hale Shapiro and Paul S. Willen in Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Paper , May 2008

This paper provides the first rigorous assessment of the homeownership experiences of subprime borrowers. We consider homeowners who used subprime mortgages to buy their homes, and estimate how often these borrowers end up in foreclosure. In order to evaluate these issues, we analyze homeownership experiences in Massachusetts over the 1989–2007 per...  

The Subprime Turmoil: What's Old, What's New, and What's Next by Charles W. Calomiris in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Symposium: Maintaining Stability in a Changing Financial System" , October 2008

We are currently experiencing a major shock to the financial system, initiated by problems in the subprime market, which spread to securitization products and credit markets more generally. Banks are being asked to increase the amount of risk that they absorb (by moving off-balance sheet assets onto their balance sheets), but losses that the banks...  

U.S. Monetary Policy and the Financial Crisis by James R. Lothian in Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta CenFIS Working Paper , December 2009

This paper reviews U.S. Federal Reserve policy prior to and during the course of the recession that began in December 2007. It compares those policies to monetary policy during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with which this recession has been likened. The paper then discusses what policymakers will need to do to in future to avoid a surge in in...  

Understanding the Securitization of Subprime Mortgage Credit by Adam B. Ashcraft and Til Schuermann in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , March 2008

In this paper, the authors provide an overview of the subprime mortgage securitization process and the seven key informational frictions that arise. They discuss the ways that market participants work to minimize these frictions and speculate on how this process broke down. They continue with a complete picture of the subprime borrower and the subp...  

Understanding the Subprime Mortgage Crisis by Yuliya Demyanyk and Otto Van Hemert in SSRN Working Paper , December 2008

In this paper the authors provide evidence that the rise and fall of the subprime mortgage market follows a classic lending boom-bust scenario, in which unsustainable growth leads to the collapse of the market. Problems could have been detected long before the crisis, but they were masked by high house price appreciation between 2003 and 2005.

What to Do about Systemically Important Financial Institutions by James B. Thomson in Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland , August 2009

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is proposing a three-tiered system for regulating systemically important financial institutions. Tier one would include high-risk institutions, such as large, interstate banks and multi-state insurance companies. Tier two would include moderately complex financial institutions, such as larger regional banks. An...  

Where's the Smoking Gun? A Study of Underwriting Standards for US Subprime Mortgages by Geetesh Bhardwaj and Rajdeep Sengupta in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper , October 2008

The dominant explanation for the meltdown in the US subprime mortgage market is that lending standards dramatically weakened after 2004. Using loan-level data, Bhardwaj and Sengupta examine underwriting standards on the subprime mortgage originations from 1998 to 2007. Contrary to popular belief, the authors find no evidence of a dramatic weakening...  

Have the Fed Liquidity Facilities Had an Effect on Libor? by Jens Christensen in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter , August 2009

In response to turmoil in the interbank lending market, the Federal Reserve inaugurated programs to bolster liquidity beginning in December 2007. Research offers evidence that these liquidity facilities have helped lower the London interbank offered rate, a key market benchmark, significantly from what it otherwise would have been expected to be.

Macroprudential Supervision of Financial Institutions: Lessons from the SCAP by Beverly Hirtle, Til Schuermann, and Kevin Stiroh in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , November 2009

A fundamental conclusion drawn from the recent financial crisis is that the supervision and regulation of financial firms in isolation—a purely microprudential perspective—are not sufficient to maintain financial stability. Rather, a macroprudential perspective, which evaluates and responds to the financial system as a whole, seems necessary, and t...  

Paulson’s Gift by Pietro Veronesi and Luigi Zingales in NBER Working Paper , October 2009

The authors calculate the costs and benefits of the largest ever U.S. Government intervention in the financial sector announced the 2008 Columbus-day weekend. They estimate that this intervention increased the value of banks’ financial claims by $131 billion at a taxpayers’ cost of $25 -$47 billions with a net benefit between $84bn and $107bn. B...  

Quantitative Easing—Uncharted Waters for Monetary Policy by James Bullard in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Regional Economist , January 2010

A discussion of the use of quantiative easing in monetary policy

What the Libor-OIS Spread Says by Daniel L. Thornton in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , May 2009

This paper offers a discussion of the current Libor-OIS rate spread, and what that rate implies for the health of banks.

Possible Solutions / Next Steps

Addressing TBTF by Shrinking Financial Institutions: An Initial Assessment by Gary H. Stern and Ron Feldman in Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis , May 2009

In this essay, the authors review concerns about the "make-them-smaller" reform. They recommend several interim steps to address TBTF that share some similarities with the make-them-smaller approach but do not have the same failings. Specifically, they support (1) imposing special deposit insurance assessments for TBTF banks to allow for spillover-...  

Aiding the Economy: What the Fed Did and Why by Ben S. Bernanke in Board of Governors , November 2010

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke's Op-ed column published in The Washington Post on November 4, 2010

Are All the Sacred Cows Dead? Implications of the Financial Crisis for Macro and Financial Policies by Asli Demirgüç-Kunt and Luis Servén in World Bank Policy Research Working Paper , January 2009

The recent global financial crisis has shaken the confidence of developed and developing countries alike in the very blueprint of financial and macro policies that underlie the western capitalist systems. In an effort to contain the crisis from spreading, the authorities in the US and many European governments have taken unprecedented steps of prov...  

As In the Past, Reform Will Follow Crisis by James Bullard in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Regional Economist , July 2009

Historically, crises have led to significant legislation. The current financial crisis will undoubtedly spur further regulation. Successful regulation should be aimed not at preventing all failures, but rather at establishing a clear and credible process such that if a failure were to occur, it would take place in an orderly fashion and not cause i...  

Asset Bubbles and Systemic Risk by Eric S. Rosengren in Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Speech , March 2010

The Global Interdependence Center's Conference on "Financial Interdependence in the World's Post-Crisis Capital Markets" Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Bank Capital: Lessons from the Financial Crisis by Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Enrica Detragiache, Ouarda Merrouche in World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, WPS5473 , November 2010

Using a multi-country panel of banks, the authors study whether better capitalized banks fared better in terms of stock returns during the financial crisis.

Bank Relationships and the Depth of the Current Economic Crisis by Julian Caballero, Christopher Candelaria, and Galina Hale in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter , December 2009

The financial crisis has been worldwide in scope, but the severity has differed from country to country. Those countries whose banks played a more central role in the global financial system, were important intermediaries, or had extensive direct relationships tended to be less seriously affected, as measured by the extent of the decline in their s...  

Buying Troubled Assets by Lucian A. Bebchuk in Harvard Law and Economics Discussion Paper (via SSRN) , April 2009

This paper analyzes how government intervention in the market for banks’ troubled assets is best designed, and also uses this analysis to evaluate the public-private investment program announced by the U.S. government in March 2009. The author begins by presenting the case for using government funds to restart the market for troubled assets. He the...  

Can Monetary Policy Affect GDP Growth? by Yi Wen in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , April 2009

Discusses whether the growth of the monetary base is associated with gaster growth of real output.

Challenges for monetary policy in EMU by Axel Weber in Homer Jones Memorial Lecture , April 2011

Bundesbank President discussed the financial crisis and its lessons for monetary policy in a lecture at the St. Louis Fed.

The Changing Nature of Financial Intermediation and the Financial Crisis of 2007-09 by Tobias Adrian and Hyun Song Shin in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , March 2010

The financial crisis of 2007-09 highlighted the changing role of financial institutions and the growing importance of the “shadow banking system,” which grew out of the securitization of assets and the integration of banking with capital market developments. This trend was most pronounced in the United States, but it also had a profound influence o...  

The Consolidation of Financial Market Regulation: Pros, Cons, and Implications for the United States by Sabrina R. Pellerin, John R. Walter, and Patricia E. Wescott in Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Working Paper , May 2009

The U.S. financial system has changed significantly over the last several decades without any major structural changes to the decentralized financial regulatory system, despite numerous proposals. In the past decade, many countries have chosen to consolidate their regulators into a newly formed "single regulator" or have significantly reduced the n...  

Cracks in the System: Repairing the Damaged Global Economy by Olivier Blanchard in International Monetary Fund: Finance and Development , December 2008

The financial crisis has exposed weaknesses in the current regulatory and supervisory frameworks, which have made clear that action is needed to reduce the risk of crises and to address them when they occur.

Credible Alertness Revisited by Jean-Claude Trichet in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium , August 2009

A discussion of three issues facing central banks: the relationship between asset prices and monetary policy; the effectiveness of the standard interest rate instrument; and the design of non-standar monetary policy measures such as the ECB's enhanced credit support.

Credit Derivatives: Systemic Risks and Policy Options by John Kiff, Jennifer Elliott, Elias Kazarian, Jodi Scarlata, and Carolyne Spackman in IMF Working Paper , November 2009

Credit derivative markets are largely unregulated, but calls are increasingly being made for changes to this “hands off” stance, amidst concerns that they helped to fuel the current financial crisis, or that they could be a cause of the next one. The purpose of this paper is to address two basic questions: (i) do credit derivative markets increase ...  

The Crisis by Alan Greenspan in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity , April 2010

To prevent a future financial crisis, the primary imperative must be increased regulatory capital and liquidity requirements on banks and significant increases in collateral requirements for globally traded financial products, irrespective of the financial institutions making the trades, Greenspan says. He offers his views about regulatory reform,...  

Emerging from the Crisis: Where Do We Stand? by Ben S. Bernanke in Board of Governors Speech , November 2010

Speech by Federal Reserve Chairman at the Sixth European Central Bank Central Banking Conference, Frankfurt, Germany

The Fed at a Crossroads by James Bullard in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Speech , March 2010

Remarks at St. Cloud State University's 48th annual Winter Institute

Fed Confronts Financial Crisis by Expanding Its Role as Lender of Last Resort by John V. Duca, Danielle DiMartino and Jessica J. Renier in Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Economic Letter , February 2009

The unprecedented actions the Fed has taken to combat the financial crisis have had some success in unclogging the economy's financial arteries, according to this article.

Federal Reserve Liquidity Programs: An Update by Niel Willardson and LuAnne Pederson in The Region (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) , June 2010

A review of the size, status and results of the Fed's programs to cope with crisis

The Federal Reserve's Asset Purchase Program by Janet Yellen in Speech at the The Brimmer Policy Forum, Allied Social Science Associations Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado , January 2011

Yellen discusses the rationale for the decision by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in November 2010 to initiate a new program of asset purchases, and addresses questions (FAQs) regarding the program's economic and financial effects both in the U.S. and abroad.

The Federal Reserve's Liquidity Facilities by William C. Dudley in Speech , April 2009

Remarks at the Vanderbilt University Conference on Financial Markets and Financial Policy Honoring Dewey Daane, Nashville, Tennessee

The Federal Reserve's Policy Actions during the Financial Crisis and Lessons for the Future by Donald L. Kohn in Board of Governors Speech , May 2010

Speech at the Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

The Financial Crisis and the Recession: What is Happening and What the Government Should Do by Robert E. Hall and Susan E. Woodward

Woodward and Hall frequently update a document on the crisis and recession. The highlights of the document are: Low interest rates in the early part of the decade were responsible monetary policy to head off deflation, not an irresponsible contribution to a housing price bubble. The most important fact about the economy today is the collapse of s...  

The Financial Crisis of 2008: What Needs to Happen after TARP by Campbell R. Harvey in Duke University Working Paper , October 2008

Harvey argues that the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP), signed into law on October 3, 2008, is an insufficient policy initiative to end the current credit crisis. In addition to modifications in implementing the program, other policy initiatives are necessary. Harvey sets forth several proposals to help end the crisis.

Fiscal Responsibility and Global Rebalancing by Janet L. Yellen in Federal Reserve Board of Governors , December 2010

Speech by Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Vice Chair at the Committee for Economic Development 2010 International Counterparts Conference, New York, New York .

The Future of Securities Regulation by Luigi Zingales in University of Chicago Working Paper , January 2009

The U.S. system of securities law was designed more than 70 years ago to regain investors’ trust after a major financial crisis. Today we face a similar problem. But while in the 1930s the prevailing perception was that investors had been defrauded by offerings of dubious quality securities, in the new millennium, investors’ perception is that they...  

The High Cost of Exceptionally Low Rates by Thomas M. Hoenig in Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City , June 2010

Speech at Bartlesville Federal Reserve Forum

Implementing a Macroprudential Approach to Supervision and Regulation by Ben S. Bernanke in Federal Reserve Board of Governors Speech , May 2011

Speech at the 47th Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition, Chicago, Illinois

Implications of the Financial Crisis for Economics by Ben S. Bernanke in Board of Governors Speech , September 2010

Speech at the Conference Co-sponsored by the Center for Economic Policy Studies and the Bendheim Center for Finance, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

Implications of the Financial Crisis for Potential Growth: Past, Present, and Future by Charles Steindel in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , November 2009

The scale of the recent collapse in asset values and the magnitude of the recession suggest that activities connected to the increase in values over the 2002-07 period—notably, expansion of the financial markets, homebuilding, and real estate—were overstated. If this is true, aggregate U.S. economic growth would have been overstated, implying that ...  

Improving the International Monetary and Financial System by Janet L. Yellen in Speech at the Banque de France International Symposium, Paris, France , March 2011

In this speech Yellen contributes her thoughts on steps we can take to improve our international economic order. In the case of the recent global financial crisis and recession, she apportions responsibility to inadequacies in both the monetary and financial systems.

It's Greek to Me by Kevin Warsh in Board of Governors Speech , June 2010

At the Atlanta Rotary Club, Atlanta, Georgia

The Lack of an Empirical Rationale for a Revival of Discretionary Fiscal Policy by John B. Taylor in AEA Presentation Paper , January 2009

Despite this widespread agreement of a decade ago, there has recently been a dramatic revival of interest in discretionary fiscal policy. The purpose of this paper is to review the empirical evidence during the past decade and determine whether it calls for such a revival. Taylor finds that it does not.

The macroeconomics of financial crises: How risk premiums, liquidity traps and perfect traps affect policy options by Manfred Gärtner und Florian Jung in University of St. Gallen Discussion Paper , July 2009

The paper shows that structural models of the IS-LM and Mundell-Fleming variety have a lot to tell about the macroeconomics of the current global crisis. In addition to demonstrating how the emergence of risk premiums in money and capital markets may drive economies into recessions, it shows the following: (1) Liquidity traps may occur not only whe...  

Monetary Policy Research and the Financial Crisis: Strengths and Shortcomings by Donald L. Kohn in Speech, Board of Governors , October 2009

Kohn, in his speech, asks "What aspects of the existing literature in monetary economics have been particularly helpful in formulating the course of monetary policy since the onset of the financial crisis? Second, what are the gaps in this literature that have become particularly evident since the onset of the financial crisis and, therefore, would...  

Monetary Policy Stance: The View from Consumption Spending by William T. Gavin in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , October 2009

The author suggests that we should expect a third business cycle in succession in which the real federal funds rate reaches its trough well after the economy begins to recover

Mortgage Choice and the Pricing of Fixed-Rate and Adjustable-Rate Mortgages by John Krainer in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter , February 2010

In the United States throughout 2009, the share of adjustable-rate mortgages among total mortgage originations was very low, apparently reflecting the attractive pricing of fixed-rate mortgages relative to ARMs. Government policy could have changed the relative attractiveness of the fixed-rate mortgages and ARMs, thereby shifting the market share o...  

Negating the Inflation Potential of the Fed’s Lending Programs by Daniel L. Thornton in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , July 2009

The Term Auction Facility (TAF), instituted in December 2007, was the first in a series of Fed lending facilities designed to allocate credit (and thus liquidity) to certain institutions and markets. The most recent of these lending facilities is the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which began operation in March 2009. Initiall...  

The New Shape of the Economic and the Financial Governance in the EU by Olli Rehn in Institute of International Finance , October 2010

Keynote Speech by EU Economic & Monetary Affairs Commissioner at The Annual Meeting Institute of International Finance

On the Record with Bernanke in PBS NewsHour Forum , July 2009

At a forum in Kansas City, Mo., Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke discussed the central bank's actions in handling the economic crisis, saying he did not want to be the Fed chief who "presided over the second Great Depression." Here is the full transcript of the forum, which was moderated by Jim Lehrer.

Paradise Lost: Addressing ‘Too Big to Fail’ (With Reference to John Milton and Irving Kristol) by Richard W. FIsher in Remarks before the Cato Institute’s 27th Annual Monetary Conference , November 2009

"In the words of Milton, I would say that regulation should be designed to enable financial institutions to be 'sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.'"

A Plan for Addressing the Financial Crisis by Lucian A. Bebchuk in Harvard Law School Working Paper , September 2008

This paper critiques the proposed emergency legislation for spending $700 billion on purchasing financial firms’ troubled assets to address the 2008 financial crisis. It also puts forward an alternative for advancing the two goals of the proposed legislation – restoring stability to the financial markets and protecting taxpayers.

Preventing Future Crises by Noel Sacasa in International Monetary Fund: Finance and Development , December 2008

This article takes a look at substantive issues in the current debates on reforming the financial sector. The first section identifies crucial weaknesses that the reforms need to address, and the second outlines key areas for policy action.

The Public Policy Case for a Role for the Federal Reserve in Bank Supervision and Regulation by Ben S. Bernanke in Board of Governors , January 2010

The Board's views on the importance of the Federal Reserve's continued role in bank supervision and regulation. The document discusses (1) how the expertise and information that the Federal Reserve develops in the making of monetary policy enable it to make a unique contribution to an effective regulatory regime, especially in the context of a more...  

Rebalancing the Global Recovery by Ben S. Bernanke in Board of Governors , November 2010

Speech by the Federal Reserve Chairman at the Sixth European Central Bank Central Banking Conference, Frankfurt, Germany

Regulating Systemic Risk by Governor Daniel K. Tarullo in Speech at the 2011 Credit Markets Symposium, Charlotte, North Carolina , March 2011

This speech addresses the implementation of the new statutory regime for special supervision and regulation of financial institutions whose stress or failure could pose a risk to financial stability.

The Regulatory Response to the Financial Crisis: An Early Assessment by Jeffrey M. Lacker in The Institute for International Economic Policy and the International Monetary Fund Institute , May 2010

Assessment of the regulatory response to this crisis will depend predominantly on how well it clarifies and places discernable boundaries around the federal financial safety net.

Remarks on "The Squam Lake Report: Fixing the Financial System" by Ben S. Bernanke in Board of Governors Speech , June 2010

At the Squam Lake Conference, New York, New York

Report on the Lessons Learned from the Financial Ccrisis with Regard to the Functioning of European Financial Market Infrastructures by European Central Bank in European Central Bank , April 2010

This report considers issues relating to the impact of the financial crisis on the functioning of European financial market infrastructures (FMIs), including systemically important payment systems, central counter parties, and securities settlement systems.

Second Chances: Subprime Mortgage Modification and Re-Default by Andrew Haughwout, Ebiere Okah, and Joseph Tracy in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports , December 2009

Mortgage modifications have become an important component of public interventions designed to reduce foreclosures. In this paper, we examine how the structure of a mortgage modification affects the likelihood of the modified mortgage re-defaulting over the next year. Using data on subprime modifications that precede the government’s Home Affordable...  

Securitization Markets and Central Banking: An Evaluation of the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility by Sean Campbell, Daniel Covitz, William Nelson, and Karen Pence in Finance & Economic Discussion Series, #2011-16 , January 2011

This working paper studies the effects of the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility and finds that it lowered interest rate spreads for some categories of asset-backed securities but had little impact on the pricing of individual securities.

Seeking Stability: What's Next for Banking Regulation? by Simona E. Cociuba in Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Economic Letter , April 2009

Cociuba reviews the Basel I regulatory framework, and then considers some of the improvements and shortcomings of Basel II. Cociuba then presents the example of Northern Rock to illustrate the shortcomings of Basel I, before considering what the future of bank regulation should look like.

Still More Lessons from the Crisis by William C. Dudley in Federal Reserve Bank of New York Speech , December 2009

Remarks at the Columbia University World Leaders Forum, New York, New York

The Success of the CPFF? by Richard G. Anderson in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , April 2009

Describes the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and its effect on the availability of commercial credit.

Uncertainty About When the Fed Will Raise Interest Rates by Michael W. McCracken in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , June 2009

In response to the current economic crisis, the Federal Reserve has reduced its federal funds rate (FFR) target to zero. With the FFR at zero and a negative rate practically infeasible, the Fed is now in largely uncharted territory when conducting monetary policy. Other types of policies are now the focus of attention.

What's Under the TARP? by Craig P. Aubuchon in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , April 2009

This article provides an outline of the TARP plan and the Financial Stability Plan.

Will Regulatory Reform Prevent Future Crises? by James Bullard in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Speech , February 2010

Remarks at CFA Virginia Society, Richmond, Virginia

Will the U.S. Bank Recapitalization Succeed? Lessons from Japan by Takeo Hoshi and Anil K. Kashyap in NBER Working Paper , December 2008

The U.S. government is using a variety of tools to try to rehabilitate the U.S. banking industry. The two principal policy levers discussed so far are employing asset managers to buy toxic real estate securities and making bank equity purchases. Japan used both of these strategies to combat its banking problems. There are also a surprising number o...  

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The 2007–09 global financial crisis witnessed colossal disruptions in asset and credit markets, massive erosions of wealth, and unprecedented numbers of bankruptcies. Six years after the crisis began, its lingering effects are still visible in advanced economies and emerging markets alike—this shows a clear need to improve our understanding of financial crises. In their forthcoming book, “Financial Crises: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses,” Stijn Claessens, M. Ayhan Kose, Luc Laeven, and Fabían Valencia provide a broad overview of the current research and bring together a number of studies on the causes and consequences of crises. This article provides brief answers to seven commonly asked questions about financial crises in light of the findings in their book.

Stijn Claessens, M. Ayhan Kose, Luc Laeven, and Fabián Valencia

• Question 1. What are the main factors explaining financial crises?

Financial crises can stem from problems of the private or public sectors’ balance sheets and have domestic or external origins. Irrespective of its origins, a financial crisis is often an amalgam of events, including substantial changes in credit volume and asset prices, severe disruptions in financial intermediation, notably a reduction in the supply of external financing, large scale balance sheet problems, and often a need for substantial government and international support.

Although crises can be driven by a variety of factors, they are often preceded by asset and credit booms. Busts, financial crises, and poor growth often follow such booms ( Figure 1 ). Given these types of associations, many theoretical and empirical studies have recognized the need to explain sharp movements in asset and credit markets. These studies have been able to identify some proximate causes, such as financial liberalization, productivity gains, and a variety of distortions, such as weak supervision and regulation, underpriced deposit insurance, and poorly designed safety nets. However, many puzzles remain in terms of what factors drive asset price bubbles and credit booms in the first place.

Coincidence of Financial Booms and Crises

(fraction of total, in percent)

Citation: IMF Research Bulletin 2013, 004; 10.5089/9781484378434.026.A003

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• Question 2. What are the major types of financial crises?

It is useful to classify crises into four groups: currency crises; sudden stops (in capital flows); debt crises; and banking crises. While there are many common causes, the available literature has also identified specific theoretical factors and empirical determinants of each type of crisis. It has sometimes been difficult to transform the predictions of theories into empirical applications, including practical ways to identify crises. While it is easy, for example, to design quantitative methods to identify currency crises and sudden stops, the identification of debt and banking crises remains typically based on qualitative and judgmental methods. The literature therefore employs a wide range of methods to identify and classify crises.

While there are issues with establishing a timeline, it is clear that financial crises are quite common and tend to cluster over time ( Figure 2 ). They also tend to hit small and large countries as well as poor and rich ones. History also shows that crises come in different shapes and sizes, evolve over time—with certain types being more important in some periods than others—and can rapidly spread across borders (as they did in the 2007–09 global financial crisis).

Average Number of Financial Crises over Decades

Irrespective of the classification used, different types of crises can often overlap. Many banking crises, for example, are associated with sudden stop episodes and currency crises. The overlap of multiple types of crises leads to further challenges for the identification of crises and examination of their underlying causes. For example, since banking and sovereign crises often coincide, it is difficult to answer definitively whether a banking crisis leads to a sovereign crisis or vice-versa.

• Question 3. What are the real and financial sector implications of crises?

Macroeconomic and financial implications of crises are typically severe, with many commonalities across various types. Recessions with large output losses are common to many crises. Other macroeconomic variables typically register significant declines as well. Financial variables, such as asset prices and credit, usually follow qualitatively similar patterns across crises, albeit with variations in terms of duration and severity. Besides their negative effects over the short run, financial crises often have adverse medium- to long-run effects on activity.

• Question 4. How severe are the medium- and long-term effects of crises?

The effects of financial crises on the real economy are quite persistent. Output tends to be depressed substantially and persistently following banking crises, with no rebound, on average, to the pre-crisis trend in the medium term. However, growth eventually returns to its pre-crisis rate for most economies. The depressed output path tends to result from long-lasting reductions of roughly equal proportions in the employment rate, the capital-to-labor ratio, and total factor productivity. In the short term, the output loss is mainly accounted for by total factor productivity losses, but, unlike the employment rate and capital-to-labor ratio, the level of total factor productivity recovers somewhat to its pre-crisis trend in the medium term.

• Question 5. What are the main policies to resolve banking crises?

The policies used to remedy the consequences of a banking crisis can be grouped into two sets. The first involves what are often called containment policies, which are deployed during the early stages of a banking crisis. This phase is often characterized by deteriorating sentiment on the viability of the financial system and the economic prospects of the country in the short term. It may involve runs on banks, on entire markets, and even runs on the domestic currency. Typically, at this stage it is difficult to tell whether the crisis reflects just liquidity shortages or solvency problems. In order to buy time to determine the true nature of the crisis, governments resort to policies such as emergency liquidity provision to banks, other financial intermediaries, and even entire markets. They often announce guarantees on bank liabilities and in extreme cases governments use deposit freezes and capital controls.

The second set of policies encompasses the resolution phase. By this stage governments have had time to design a plan to address solvency problems and enact any necessary changes in legislation or secured funding for the restructuring of the financial sector. This phase includes policies such as recapitalization of banks with public funds, closure of insolvent institutions, restructuring of viable ones, setting new institutional arrangements such as asset management companies, as well as restructuring of private debt.

Not all policies mentioned above are used in every crisis, but they are all the most common policies that are used in remedying the effects of a banking crisis. The effect of interventions on economic costs and the fiscal accounts depends, to a large extent, on the policy mix. The use of guarantees on bank liabilities can contain liquidity pressures on banks, for example, without involving a disbursement of public funds upfront, but with potentially substantial fiscal contingencies, although they may not necessarily materialize. In contrast, direct capital injections have a certain impact on the public purse upfront, but some of these resources can be recovered in the future when public shareholdings are returned to private hands. The timing of the policy mix can also affect the fiscal costs of a crisis. If macroeconomic policies are used to avoid a sharp contraction in activity, this may discourage more active bank restructuring that would allow banks to recover more quickly and renew lending, with the risk of prolonging the crisis and depressing growth for a prolonged period of time. This, in turn, can increase indirect fiscal and economic costs.

• Question 6. What is the importance of household debt restructuring as a tool to resolve crises?

The historically high levels of household debt in many recent crisis-hit countries heightened demands for government intervention. If unaddressed, household debt distress can be a drain on the economy and even lead to social unrest. Well-designed and well-executed government interventions may be more efficient than leaving debt restructuring to the marketplace and standard court-based resolution tools. Empirically, there is evidence that housing busts and recessions preceded by larger run-ups in household debt tend to be more severe and protracted. Government policies can help prevent prolonged contractions in economic activity by addressing the problem of excessive household debt. In particular, bold household debt-restructuring programs such as those implemented in the United States in the 1930’s and in Iceland in the aftermath of the global crisis can significantly reduce debt-repayment burdens and the number of household defaults and foreclosures.

• Question 7. Can future crises be avoided?

Banking crises have affected countries for centuries and history has been a great laboratory for academics and policymakers to study early detection of crises, their consequences on the real economy, and the effectiveness of policies used to resolve them. Progress has been made in all these directions, but not sufficiently to claim that they can be avoided at all costs. Nevertheless, important lessons have been learned about vulnerabilities, the role of excessive credit growth—perhaps the single most important predictor of a banking crisis—the role of excessive maturity mismatches, and excessive exposure to exchange rate risk. While not perfect, these lessons will be important in designing regulatory policies and reducing the incidence of crises in the future; one concrete example includes advances in the design of macropru-dential regulation.

However, just as the policy toolkit evolves, the nature of crises evolves as well. Complexity in financial markets and institutions makes the identification of vulnerabilities more challenging. Therefore, efforts on crisis prevention are important, but it is unlikely that they will ever reach a level of effectiveness as to eradicate crises completely.

Claessens , Stijn , M. Ayhan Kose , Luc Laeven , and Fabian Valencia , 2013 , Financial Crises: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses , ( Washington : International Monetary Fund ).

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Dell’ Ariccia , Giovanni , Deniz Igan , Luc Laeven , and Hui Tong , 2013 , “ Policies for Macrofinancial Stability: Dealing with Credit Booms and Busts, ” in Financial Crises: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses , edited by Stijn Claessens , M. Ayhan Kose , Luc Laeven , and Fabían Valencia . ( Washington : International Monetary Fund ).

Forbes , K. J ., and F . Warnock , 2012 , “ Capital Flow Waves: Surges, Stops, Flight, and Retrenchment, ” Journal of International Economics , Vol. 88 , No. 2 , pp. 235 – 51 .

Laeven , Luc , and Fabian Valencia , 2013 , “ Resolution of Banking Crises: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ” in Financial Crises: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses d , edited by Stijn Claessens , M. Ayhan Kose , Luc Laeven , and Fabían Valencia ( Washington : International Monetary Fund ).

Same Series

• Q&A: Seven Questions on Financial Interconnectedness
• Q&A Seven Questions on Financial Frictions and the Sources of Business Cycle
• Q&A Seven Questions about the Consequences of Financial Liberalization
• Q&A Seven Questions about Emerging Markets and the Financial Crisis
• Q&A Seven Questions about Recessions
• Q&A: Seven Questions on Fintech
• Q&A: Seven Questions on Potential Output
• Q&A Seven Questions about Political Influence and the Financial Crisis
• Q&A: Seven Questions on the Global Housing Markets
• Q&A: Seven Questions on Islamic Finance

Other IMF Content

• Financial Crises Explanations, Types, and Implications
• Chapter 1. Financial Crises Explanations, Types, and Implications
• Booms, Crises, and Recoveries: A New Paradigm of the Business Cycle and its Policy Implications
• Systemic Banking Crises Database: An Update
• Approaches to Corporate Debt Restructuring in the Wake of Financial Crises
• Responding to Banking Crises: Lessons From Cross-Country Evidence
• Chapter 17. Policy Responses to Systemic Banking Crises
• The Corporate Sector Dynamics of Systemic Financial Crises
• Systemic Banking Crises Revisited
• The Sectoral Trade Losses from Financial Crises

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Asian development bank.

• Policies to Optimize the Performance of Credit Guarantee Schemes During Financial Crises
• Financial Integration and Macrofinancial Linkages in Asia: Crises, Responses, and Policy Considerations
• Public Financial Management Systems - Bangladesh: Key Elements from a Financial Management Perspective
• Public Financial Management Systems - Indonesia: Key Elements from a Financial Management Perspective
• Three Decades of International Financial Crises: What Have We Learned and What Still Needs to be Done?
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Inter-American Development Bank

• Coping with Financial Crises: Latin American Answers to European Questions
• Financial Crises in Japan and Latin America
• Foreign Bank Behavior during Financial Crises
• Financial Crises and Macro-Prudential Policies
• Banking Crises and Financial Integration
• Maturity Mismatch and Financial Crises: Evidence from Emerging Market Corporations
• Multilateral Safety Nets for Financial Crises
• Equilibrium Unemployment During Financial Crises
• The Question of the Q's: What Cue Should Quebec Send to Qatar?
• Is the Eurozone on the Mend? Latin American Examples to Analyze the Euro Question

International Labour Organization

• Financial crises, deflation and trade union responses: What are the lessons?: International Journal of Labour Research, IJLR, Vol 2, No 1/2010

Nordic Council of Ministers

• Glycemic Index: From Research to Nutrition Recommendations?
• Publikation: Carbon leakage from a Nordic perspective

The World Bank

• Lessons from World Bank research on financial crises
• Learning from Financial Crises
• Do Phoenix Miracles Exist?: Firm-Level Evidence from Financial Crises
• Debt and Financial Crises
• Trade credit and bank credit: evidence from recent financial crises
• The Social Impact of Financial Crises: Evidence from the Global Financial Crisis
• The value of relationship banking during financial crises: evidence from the Republic of Korea
• Management and resolution of banking crises: lessons from the Republic of Korea and Mexico
• Resolving systemic financial crises: policies and institutions
• Financial policies and the prevention of financial crises in emerging market economies

Table of Contents

• Front Matter
• Research Summaries: Reforming Dual Labor Markets In Advanced Economies
• Rating Through-The-Cycle: What Does the Concept Imply for Rating Stability and Accuracy?
• Q&A: Seven Questions on Financial Crises: Perspectives from the Frontier of Research
• IMF Working Papers
• Recommended Readings from the IMF Bookstore
• Staff Discussion Notes
• IMF Economic Review
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76 Economic Crisis Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on economic crisis, 📚 economic crisis research paper examples, 🎓 most interesting economic crisis research titles, 💡 simple economic crisis essay ideas.

• Starbucks: The Economic Crisis of 2008
• World Economy Problem and World Economic Crisis
• Economic Crisis and Its Impact on People
• Luxury Brands After Economic Crisis in 2008-2020
• 2008 Economic Crisis in Inside Job Documentary
• The 2007-2008 Economic Crisis
• Poor Kids: An Intimate Portrait of America’s Economic Crisis
• Economic Crisis and Inequality Low-wage workers have to face a wide range of difficulties; the greatest of them is the fear of losing their jobs.
• Economic Crisis and Entrepreneurial Opportunities Entrepreneurship across the world has been revealed to be one of the major economic boosters in various economies.
• Economic Crisis and Its Effects on Exports The world is in the grip of the worst economic turmoil since the great depression, it all started from the collapse of the US mortgage giants and quickly spread to various financial institutions.
• Economic Issues of Housing Crisis in New York Many microeconomic issues affect American cities, and one of the most prominent of them is the housing crisis.
• Japan’s Crisis Governance in a Period of Economic Stagnation Japan is the first of the “Asian tigers” and an excellent example of quality industrial policy, which prevented the country from falling into a recession in the crisis years.
• On the Impact and Forecasting of the Economic Crisis The article examines the economic crisis of 2008 and the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and also discusses the reasons why they could not be predicted in advance.
• The Ireland’s Economic Crisis When the economy suffered the recent recession, most immigrants left the country and locals also went abroad to search for greener pastures.
• The Global Economic Crisis of 2008 Before the start of the global economic crisis in September 2008, there had already been published countless business journals that sought to warn of the looming danger ahead.
• Global Supply Chain in a Time of Economic Crisis This paper is a critique of the article about “Managing the global supply chain in a time of economic crisis” by Paul Laudicina.
• Economic Crisis: Bailout Plan as Solution The current economic crisis in the US and how the bailout plan can be a solution. The bailout plan involves the pumping of the money into the US economic sector.
• National Economic Crisis as a Result of Failure by National Governments. Governments the world over have a major responsibility of ensuring that sound economic conditions are made available for the benefit of its civilians.
• Economic Crisis and Its Implications in Various Areas The paper analyzes three economic articles “The Political Geography of Gasoline Prices,” “The Conscience of a Liberal,” and “Where the Hiring Is Strongest”.
• Indonesia’s Response to the Economic Crisis of 1997 This paper analyzes how the Indonesian government perceived the crisis of 1997 and whether the decision went down well with the officials.
• Business Management Issues: 2008 Global Economic Crisis This paper devotes to crisis management, where the crisis of 2007-2008 was used as an illustration of the crisis, the causes and consequences of which were studied.
• The Rise of Islamic Banking in a Time of Economic Crisis On the surface, it may seem odd that Islamic banking is in such demand but when looked at from a cultural and religious perspective, it embodies the very essence of Islamic law.
• The European Debt Crisis: Economic Analysis The main economic problem facing the European Union is the debt crisis. Debt crisis intensified in recent decades due to differences in fiscal policy.
• Obama’s Economic Policy and Financial Crisis There were significant expectations laid on the new president after the election. The economic situation Obama had to face when becoming the president was a true disaster.
• Greek Economic Crisis: Causes and Control Measures Between the last quarter of 2007 and early 2009, the world went through a serious economic crisis that left several economies vulnerable. Greece was no exception.
• The Syrian Crisis: Economic and Social Impact The conflict in Syria and its repercussions have now reached such a serious situation that immediate global initiatives are needed by way of humanitarian interventions.
• Challenges for Light Industry During the Economic Crisis
• Are You Panicked? Economic and Health Consequences of the Economic Crisis
• Mortgage Loan Fraud and Its Impact on the Worldwide Economic Crisis
• Bank Efficiency During the Current Economic Crisis: An International Comparison
• Social Dialogue and Industrial Relations During the Economic Crisis: Innovative Practices or Business as Usual
• 2008 Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on India’s Exports and Imports
• Accounting and Audit Versus Global Economic Crisis
• Financial and Economic Crisis in Eastern Europe
• Bringing Domestic Institutions Back Into Understanding Ireland’s Economic Crisis
• 21st Century Global Economic Crisis: Relevance to the New Deal
• America’s Economic Crisis and the Federal Reserve System
• Private Pensions and Policy Responses to the Financial and Economic Crisis
• Capital, Exploitation and Economic Crisis
• Banking System, Financial Wealth, and Economic Crisis
• Similar but Different: Health and Economic Crisis in 1990s Cuba and Russia
• Asian Economic Crisis and the Economic Policy of the United States During the Presidency of Bill Clinton
• Climate Change and Energy Utilities: Key Indicators and Impact of the Economic Crisis
• How Did the First Ever Big Economic Crisis Look Like?
• China’s Energy Consumption During the Global Economic Crisis
• Economic Crisis and Agriculture in Fascist Italy, 1927-1935
• Active Labor Market Policy in Bulgaria in an Economic Crisis Context
• Catastrophic Job Destruction During the Portuguese Economic Crisis
• Short-term Macroeconomic and Poverty Impacts of the Global Economic Crisis on the Ecuadorian Economy
• Bank Relationships and the Depth of the Current Economic Crisis
• Automatic Stabilizers and Economic Crisis: US vs Europe
• Global Economic Crisis: Causes and Consequences
• African Economic Crisis: 1985-1990
• Between Berlusconi and Monti: Trade Unions and Economic Crisis in Italy
• Marketing Strategies Amid Prolonged Economic Crisis
• Analyzing the Main Changes in New Consumer Buying Behavior During Economic Crisis
• Caribbean Governance: The Impact of the Global Economic Crisis
• Financial Crises and Their Effects on Global Economic Crisis
• Business Cycles and Economic Crisis in Greece (1960–2011)
• What Went Wrong in the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis?
• Accelerating the Green Transformation in the USA: New Deal for the Economic Crisis
• Relational Capital and Company Value in Terms of the Global Economic Crisis
• Comparing the Current Economic Crisis and the Great Depression
• Global Economic Crisis and Poverty in Pakistan
• China’s Latent Economic Crisis and Potential Risks
• Borrowing Locally, Operating Globally? Financing and Trading Patterns of Firms During the 2007/2008 Economic Crisis
• Child Health and Economic Crisis in Peru
• Dual-Option Subsidiaries and Exit Decisions During Times of Economic Crisis
• Airlines and the Economic Crisis
• Stock Markets and Economic Crisis in Saudi Arabia
• Banking Industry During the Economic Crisis: The Survival of Non-Japanese Foreign Banks in Indonesia
• Global Economic Crisis, Gender and Employment: The Impact and Policy Response
• Are Recessions Good for Your Health Behaviors? Impacts of the Economic Crisis on Iceland
• Thailand and Japan After the Economic Crisis
• Business During Economic Crisis
• Asian Economic Crisis and the Role of Japan

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• Financial Crisis Essays

Financial Crisis Essays (Examples)

1000+ documents containing “financial crisis” .

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Financial crisis and predatory lending.

Many laws have been successful in restricting such practices in order to avoid a similar situation in the future. Today, "when a mortgage borrower wins a rescission case in court, the bank loses the right to foreclose, and has to give up all profits from interest and fees on the loan" (Carter, 2012). However, just a few years after predatory lending caused so much damage, there are already movements to once again make it a possible scenario for contemporary lenders. The research posits that "under the Fed's new proposal, however, borrowers would be required to pay off the balance of the loan before the bank loses its right to foreclose -- that means borrowers could still lose their homes, even in cases where banks have broken the law" (Carter, 2012). Only time will tell whether or not law makers attempt at reining in financial predators will actually work. As….

Baker, Dean. (2008). The housing crash recession: How did we get here? PBS. Web.  http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/412/housing-recession.html 

Carter, Zach. (2012). FED moves to gut predatory lending regulation. Huffington Post. Web.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/04/federal-reserve-rescission-regulation_n_804334.html 

Geffner, Marice. (2012). Why the housing crash remains a wreck. BankRate. Web.  http://www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/why-the-housing-crash-remains-a-wreck-1.aspx 

Holt, Jeff. (2009). A summary of the primary causes of the housing bubble and the resulting credit crisis: A non-technical paper. The Journal of Business Inquiry, 8(1), 120-129.

Financial Crisis Threat or Opportunity

" (2009) Yam states that over the past year the need existed to involve the government more deeply in the banking industry and especially in the area of deposit guarantees and in the supervision of the risk management of banks. Yam states that it is "…gratifying that so many of the tools that we have been able to rely on, including the apparatus and contingency arrangements for ensuring liquidity, have been developed in a pre-emptive rather than a reactive way. On the various emergency measures, I am quite sure that in the fullness of time, these will either be turned into standing arrangements or withdrawn, hopefully through smooth exit strategies. but, current sentiment is clearly demanding much closer regulation and supervision of banks over the longer term." (2009) the form that this will take is stated to be pending in the international forums however Yam states that the thinking thus….

Bibliography

Bradsher, Keith (2008) Hong Kong Backs Bank Deposits for 2 Years. 14 Oct 2008. The New York Times. Online available at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/business/worldbusiness/15deposits.html 

Kumar, Phani V. (2010) Hong Kong Rebounds as Banks, Resource Stocks. 15 Mar 2010. Market Pulse, Market Watch. Online available at:  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hong-kong-rebounds-as-banks-resource-stocks-2010-03-15 

Hong Kong Banking Industry Overview (2010) Janus Corporate Solutions. Online available at:  http://www.guidemehongkong.com/company/c774-hong-kong-banking-industry-overview.htm 

Hall, Maximilian J.B. Hall, Kenjeglieva, Karligash a. And Simper, Richard (2008) Environmental Factors Affecting Hong Kong Banking: A Post-Asian Financial Crisis Efficiency Analysis. Loughborough University and Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research

Financial Crisis of 2007-2009

Financial Crisis and Its Implications: Events Occurring Between 2007 and 2009 A Critical Literature Review The Roots of the Crisis Real Estate Valuation Bubble Sub-Prime Mortgages Low Interest Rates Moral Hazard in Regard to Consumer Spending Packaging Real Estate Loans as a Commodity (Derivatives) Market Interrelatedness Future Implications The financial crisis, which seemed to be elevated to its greatest extent world-wide between the years 2007 and 2009, is difficult to unravel. The causes, interlink-ages, and effects are so intertwined that it is hard to separate them into a "first cause" or anything else that would resemble a succinct explanation. Although in retrospect, many individual underlying themes are attributed to the underpinnings of the crisis; in reality there are a plethora of variables that must be accounted for in trying to determine the crisis's root cause. Additionally, none of these factors can be considered in a vacuum. That is, none of the factors that are relevant acted independently. Instead, the variables….

Works Cited

Asensio, A, and D. Lang. "The Financial Crisis, Its Economic Consequences, and How to Get Out of It." International Journal of Political Economy, 2010: 58-69.

Focardi, S, and F. Fabozzi. "THE REASONABLE EFFECTIVENESS OF MATHEMATICS IN ECONOMICS." American Economist, 2010: 19-30.

Fratianni, M, and F. Marchionne. " The Role of Banks in the Subprime Financial Crisis ." Review of Economic Conditions, 2009.

Konings, M. "Rethinking Neoliberalism and the Subprime Crisis: Beyond the Re-regulation Agenda." Competition & Change, 2009: 108-127.

Financial Crisis There Are Signs

These borrowers had -- knowingly or not -- been gambling on a real estate market they did not understand. Understanding the complexities of the real estate market and fiscal policy is complicated -- those who have grown up without access to the best education and who do not have experienced friends and family to help advise them in this process were the most vulnerable. Squires, Hyra and Renner showed that subprime lenders were able to segment their market by geography. Combined with the ethnic segregation that exists in most American cities, the outcome was simple -- minorities were targeted for subprime loans. The poor and working class were targeted by predatory lenders. hen the crisis hit, it was these groups that suffered the most and foreclosure rates in these communities spiked. Interest Rates & Bank Deregulation To spur economic growth during the slowdown in 2000-02, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates and….

Works Cited:

Squires, G.; Hyra, D.; Renner, R. (2009). Segregation and the subprime lending crisis. EPI Briefing Paper. Retrieved February 15, 2010 from  http://epi.3cdn.net/d1219ac2d8a407a2f5_b3m6b5bkb.pdf 

Scott, J. & Leonhardt, D. (no date). Shadowy lines that divide.

Financial Crisis That Emerged in 2008 Came

Financial crisis that emerged in 2008 came about because of a number of different factors that all contributed something to the problem. Ostensibly, this was a credit crunch. A credit crunch occurs when lender either no longer have money to lend or they are prohibited or unwilling to do so. Mussa (2008) notes a truth that Adam Smith recorded that while money is an essential part of an economy's capital stock, it was not directly useful but rather indirectly useful through consumption or production. So what we saw with the credit crunch was that lenders were not lending. This brought about conditions where firms did not have access to the capital that they needed in order to grow. Then, of course, this became a contagion. orries about the economy slowing down due to a lack of credit had otherwise healthy companies cancelling projects and money that otherwise could have been lent….

Mussa, M. (2008). Adam Smith and the political economy of a modern financial crisis. Business Economics Vol. 44 (1) 3-16.

Poole, W. (2008). The credit crunch of 2007-2008: Lessons private and public. Business Economics. Vol. 44 (1) 38-40.

Financial Crisis in Peripheral Europe

In other words, there are few controls in place to ensure responsible spending or, in the case of Greece, that the books are not cooked. The implication of this is that Greece makes errors and commits fraud, knowing that the eurozone will be forced to bail them out or risk grave instability. The other nations are then forced to bail Greece out, because they share a common currency and therefore a common economic fate, but also because the Germans benefited from the high current account balance in the first place. There are a number of potential solutions. The eurozone could determine that addition by subtraction is a good strategy. Despite the short-term instability, it would allow the zone to be comprised of major exporting and otherwise fiscally responsible nations. Throwing the PIGS under the bus may be difficult politically and cause severe harm in the short-run, but could benefit the….

Kulish, N. (2010). Opposition grows in Germany to bailout for Greece. New York Times. Retrieved March 24, 2010 from  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/world/europe/16germany.html 

Walberg, E. (2010). Euro crisis: Latvia and the PIGS. Global Research.ca. Retrieved March 24, 2010 from  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=WAL20100316&articleId=18144 

No author. (2008). IMF approves bailout for Latvia. BBC. Retrieved March 24, 2010 from  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7798776.stm 

Krugman, P. (2010). Anatomy of a euromess. New York Times. Retrieved March 24, 2010 from  http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/anatomy-of-a-euromess/

Financial Crisis in Canada Is

The partisan politics seen south of the border would be impossible, because the resulting inaction would be viewed unfavorably by Canadians. The financial crisis has damaged Canada economically, but it has also highlighted the value of financial conservatism. Canada's handling of the crisis has improved its standing in the world. The Canadian banking system has been lauded for its conservative nature. Further esteem has been brought to the government for its role in building a strong, stable banking system. Many economic observers have taken notice of Canada's successes and prescribed some of Canada's regulations as a future path for their own banking systems. Aside from banking, Canada is now showing some signs of economic weakness. The country's relatively strength, however, has caused the government to take relatively little action on the crisis. This has not enhanced Canada's international standing, but it has not hurt it either. Canada has not needed to….

No author. (2007). Gross Domestic Product. World Bank. Retrieved April 20, 2009 from  http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP.pdf 

Uptigrove, Mark. (2005). Canada's Petro-Currency Cushion. Morningstar. Retrieved April 20, 2009 from  http://quicktake.morningstar.com/Stocknet/san.aspx?id=145803 

CIA World Factbook: Canada (2009). Retrieved April 20, 2009 from  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html 

Zakaria, Fareed. (2009). Worthwhile Canadian Initiative. Newsweek. Retrieved April 20, 2009 from http://www.newsweek.com/id/183670

Financial Crisis Contemporary Social and Political Issue

Financial Crisis Contemporary Social and Political Issue: The Financial Crisis The current recession is considered among the worst in U.S. history. As it has been characterized by policy experts, public officials and members of private industries alike, the U.S. economy is experiencing a financial crisis which is surpassed at present only by the Great Depression which persisted across the 1930s. This qualifies as perhaps the most pressing political and social issue of our times. Indeed, there is not a profession or walk of American life that has not been impacted by the litany of collapsed banks, belly-up investment groups, embezzled pensions, budgetary deficits and housing/auto industry bubble bursts that have occurred across the last five years. As public officials in Congress and the Obama Administration have enacted dramatic and controversial legislative packages in order to reverse an already cresting tide, it is clear that the very same Departments of the U.S. Government which….

Brewer, P. (2009). Root Causes of the Financial Crisis. WiseBread

Hudson, M. (2008). Financial Bailout: America's Own Kleptocracy. Global Research.ca.

Katz, C. (2011). Cuomo on Radio Paterson: I 'Respect' The Occupy Wall Street Protests, But We'll Maintain Order. New York Daily News.

Financial Crisis -- Critical Issues

In that regard, the regulatory changes that allowed banks and other mortgage lenders to sell off their obligations (and the development of complex investment techniques to do so) undermined the integrity of the U.S. housing market. Specifically, Wall Street investment firms and mortgage banks began purchasing, repackaging, and trading in all of the individual home mortgages simultaneous to the elimination of any natural incentive of lenders to ensure that their borrowers were safe risks (Bhide, 2009). The obvious solution to that problem would be to prosecute lenders, mortgage brokers, realtors, and certain borrowers who deliberately ignored their legal duties to conduct business in good faith (Bradley, 2008). Fundamental Ethical Problems and Conflicts of Interests Throughout the financial services and mortgage lending industry that developed after the most recent era of deregulation, the de facto elimination of any liability or risk on the part of lenders for bad loans generated fraudulent practices….

Bhide a. "Why Bankers Got So Reckless" Business Week (February 9, 2009): 30-31.

Bradley D. "Real Estate Fraud." The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Vol. 77, No. 9

(2008): 1-4.

Nocera J. "Risk Mismanagement: Were the Measures Used to Evaluate Wall Street

Financial Crisis the Current Financial

What one can determine from the current literature, however, was that today's recession was fueled, at least in part, by the misuse and misdistribution of credit. For this reason, the current culture shift is most likely a solution to the problem it itself. esponding to the recession, the American people have changed their attitude toward politics, spending, and the importance of finances in their daily lives. By spending less, relying on credit less, and saving more, the American people are bound to aid in ending the current financial crisis. Government, on the other hand, must step in to regulate what the people cannot in their own personal finances. By encouraging the Democratic plans of tax cuts and job creation, the American people can continue to advocate for the solution of the problem. Thus, finance and the economy are large contributors to a group's culture. The current recession is no….

Barbaro, Micahel and Uchitelle, Louis. (2008, January 14). Americans Cut Back Sharply

On Spending. The New York Times. Retrieved from,  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/business/14spend.html 

Banking Crisis Timeline. (2008, October 30). The Guardian. Retrieved November 17, 2008 at  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/08/creditcrunch.marketturmoil 

BBC. (2008, September 26). Q&a: Financial crisis and you. Retrieved November 17, 2008 at  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7625419.stm

American and European Financial Crisis of 2008

The 2008 financial crisis is considered the worst economic disaster to ever affect the world since the occurrence of the Great Depression of 1929. The crisis led to the collapsing of the financial system in the U.S. and other countries in Europe. Millions of people lost their jobs on either side of the Atlantic because of the financial crisis. Different authorities responded differently to curb the crisis in their backyard. This paper looks at the similarities between the crisis in the U.S. and the one in the Euro Zone while also outlining the difference between the two regions. In the U.S., the financial crisis was mainly caused by deregulation in the financial industry. Banks were permitted to engage in hedge fund trading with derivatives. As a result, banks demanded more mortgages to support the business. Most of the financial institutions in the U.S. created interest-only loans that became affordable to borrowers….

The Great Financial Crisis and the FASB

Reflection Paper: Mortgage CrisisThe mortgage crisis came about because starting in the 1990s under the Clinton Administration, a push for greater home ownership was facilitated by a lowering of lending standards for home buyer borrowers. This created artificial demand in the housing market, and prices of homes soared. Over the course of the next decade, lending standards rapidly deteriorated, and home mortgages were being bundled and sold to investors as collateralized debt obligations, and derivatives were added to the mix so that an enormous financial industry focused on mortgage-backed securities had grown into a behemoth (Lewis, 2010). The Federal Reserve had kept interest rates low in response to the Dot Com bubble bursting at the turn of the 21st century, and this in turn had caused yield-starved investors to seek out financial instruments like collateralized debt obligations. Starting in 2004, the Fed Funds Rate rose from 1% to more than….

Lewis, M. (2010). The Big Short. NY: W. W. Norton.

Young, M. R., (2008). Both sides make good points. Journal of Accountancy, 205(5), 34.

Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2007 2008

The Subprime Crisis There were a number of factors that led to the subprime crisis: Fannie Mae, Countrywide Financial, the Federal Reserve, Moody’s, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, AIG, Michael Burry, who shorted the mortgage backed securities being sold to investors that were full of subprime—and guys like him (the ones depicted in Michael Lewis’s The Big Short)—they all had a role to play in the subprime crisis of 2007-2008 (McLean, Nocera). But, truth be told, the lead-up to the crisis started well before the actual collapse of the market. It started with housing in the 1990s. But one could even go back further to the 1970s when Lewis Ranieri of Salomon Brothers invented the mortgage backed security (MBS)—a bond made up of thousands of home mortgages that were bundled together, sliced up and sold to investors who would collect the interest (Lewis). It was a way for the original….

SEC Enforcement of Goldman Sachs and AIG

Goldman Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre were charged by the SEC in 2010 with “Fraud In Connection With the Structuring and Marketing of a Synthetic CDO” from the 2007 subprime mortgage scandal at the heart of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 (SEC, 2010). The specific charge was that the bank and Tourre made material misstatements and omissions in connection with a synthetic collateralized debt obligation that the bank had structured, marketed and sold to investors. The synthetic CDOs were linked to the performance of the subprime housing mortgage market—i.e., the subprime mortgage-backed securities identified by Lewis (2010) as triggering the wave of financial distress that led to central banking intervention (unconventional monetary policy—also known as quantitative easing) and the inflation of asset bubbles currently seen today (Huston & Spencer, 2018). Goldman Sachs settled with the SEC and agreed to pay $550 million on the condition that the bank not….

Financial Crisis a Crisis of Capitalism Compare

financial crisis a "crisis of capitalism? Compare and contrast the theories of Susan Strange, Karl Polanyi and Giovanni Arrighi. Explain how three of them accessed issues of Financial crisis and its relationship with capitalism Starting from 2008 onwards, we are currently experiencing an unremitting state of economic recession. Each of the three theorists stated in this essay have different perspectives of whether or not the recession indicates crises of capitalism. Whilst Susan Strange and Karl Polanyi have a more optimist perspective on the subject and indicate that rather than crisis, the recession may, in effect, be, in the first case, a misplaced paradigm (or different, tortured perspective) and in the second case, only a slight wrench that necessitates government intervention for amending a temporary situation, Arrighiri sees the situation as indeed manifesting something that is intrinsically, irremediably, and inherently wrong in the structure of capitalism itself. Each of these views will….

Giovanni Arrighi (2000) Workers North and South) in C. Leys and L. Panich, eds., The Socialist Register. London: The Merlin Press

Giovanni Arrighi (1996). Capitalism and the Modern World-System: Rethinking the Non-Debates of the 1970s"

 http://www2.binghamton.edu/fbc/archive/gaasa96.htm 

Giovanni Arrighi (2001) Braudel, Capitalism and the New Economic Sociology, Review, XXIV, 1

I\'m looking for essay topic ideas on local governments challenges. Do you have any suggestions?

Local Governments: Challenges and Innovations Introduction Local governments play a critical role in delivering essential services, fostering economic development, and addressing community concerns. However, they also face a myriad of challenges that can hinder their ability to effectively meet the needs of their constituents. This essay will explore some of the key challenges confronting local governments and discuss innovative approaches to address them. Fiscal Constraints One of the most pressing challenges for local governments is fiscal constraints. Many municipalities are experiencing stagnant or declining revenue streams due to factors such as the global financial crisis, population shifts, and reduced state and federal aid. This....

Many laws have been successful in restricting such practices in order to avoid a similar situation in the future. Today, "when a mortgage borrower wins a rescission case…

Dissertation

" (2009) Yam states that over the past year the need existed to involve the government more deeply in the banking industry and especially in the area of deposit…

Financial Crisis and Its Implications: Events Occurring Between 2007 and 2009 A Critical Literature Review The Roots of the Crisis Real Estate Valuation Bubble Sub-Prime Mortgages Low Interest Rates Moral Hazard in Regard to Consumer…

These borrowers had -- knowingly or not -- been gambling on a real estate market they did not understand. Understanding the complexities of the real estate market and…

Financial crisis that emerged in 2008 came about because of a number of different factors that all contributed something to the problem. Ostensibly, this was a credit crunch. A…

In other words, there are few controls in place to ensure responsible spending or, in the case of Greece, that the books are not cooked. The implication of…

The partisan politics seen south of the border would be impossible, because the resulting inaction would be viewed unfavorably by Canadians. The financial crisis has damaged Canada economically, but…

Financial Crisis Contemporary Social and Political Issue: The Financial Crisis The current recession is considered among the worst in U.S. history. As it has been characterized by policy experts, public officials…

Research Paper

In that regard, the regulatory changes that allowed banks and other mortgage lenders to sell off their obligations (and the development of complex investment techniques to do so)…

What one can determine from the current literature, however, was that today's recession was fueled, at least in part, by the misuse and misdistribution of credit. For this…

Economics - Inflation

The 2008 financial crisis is considered the worst economic disaster to ever affect the world since the occurrence of the Great Depression of 1929. The crisis led to the…

Reflection Paper: Mortgage CrisisThe mortgage crisis came about because starting in the 1990s under the Clinton Administration, a push for greater home ownership was facilitated by a lowering of…

Economics - Banking

The Subprime Crisis There were a number of factors that led to the subprime crisis: Fannie Mae, Countrywide Financial, the Federal Reserve, Moody’s, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, AIG,…

Goldman Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre were charged by the SEC in 2010 with “Fraud In Connection With the Structuring and Marketing of a Synthetic CDO” from the…

financial crisis a "crisis of capitalism? Compare and contrast the theories of Susan Strange, Karl Polanyi and Giovanni Arrighi. Explain how three of them accessed issues of Financial crisis…

Financial Crises and Government's Policy Responses

Financial crisis, policy.

Research Paper Topics

Please upload your paper title and abstract. Your abstract should include a single, the most important research question and your argument.

110 thoughts on “ Research Paper Topics ”

Title: Italy Bailed Out? This paper will focus on the European Union’s highly publicized bailout plan for Spain and Italy. Following the recent financial crisis, Italy found its government buried in debt. In order to prevent a snowball-effect throughout the continent, the EU decided that immediate economic intervention was necessary. The resulting proposal: a 60 billion euro bailout (roughly 80 billion USD). There are many questions and criticisms surrounding this plan. Needless to say, the impact and possible ramifications it may have on the country are extremely significant- in both the short and long-term. This paper will examine how the bailout is implemented as well as some of the political and economic policies that will surely arise from it.

Is this your final research paper topic? Your argument, then, is missing. Of course, your research question is also unclear.

correction: 600 billion (though some sources suggest that figure to be even higher)

The Presidential Economic Policies

Americans find themselves in a tough economic position, the debt is through the roof, the unemployment rate is superfluous, and the economy is crumbling beneath our feet. In my paper, I will be focusing on the economic policies that the current presidential candidates are focusing on. In my research, I will be analyzing both the Democratic and Republican policies for fixing the 2007-2009 global financial crisis. I will explore the history of many previous successful policies passed by former presidents and offer an analysis as to the negative and positive effects of such policies. I will also examine the policies put in place by President Obama and offer their weaknesses and strengths, and determine why they ultimately failed. I will discuss Mitt Romney’s economic policies and determine, with evidence, why he is the clear choice for president on the basis of economic growth and recovery.

Don’t discuss various policies. Pick one and analyze it thoroughly. This post was before I announced the paper guideline, so I understand. But I can’t see your main research question and argument.

Before I knew what the guidelines for this specific topic were, I actually wrote out my beginning introduction paragraphs and emailed them to you. I would like to hear what you think about how I started my research paper and any criticisms you have.

If the policies wont work out, Obama will again come up to people and will say I am only 10% responsible. Its a pretty good topic.

title: Economic stimulus package boost U.S economy two economic stimulus packages were signed into law by president. Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 was signed by president bush, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was signed by obama during the global financial crisis 2007-2009. the aim of the two act are taxt cut, i will organzie my paper into two parts, the advantages of economic stimulus and the disavantages of economic stimulus.

Where’s your argument? I can’t see your argument.

my argument would be: someone support tax cut, but there is someone against tax cut by saying the tax cut would only work if there is no crisis to boost up economy. i will argue this controversial topic on tax cut policy from its postive and negative sides based on my research, and make my own conculsion.

Still, your argument is not clear. Do you support tax cuts? Choose either pro-tax cut or anti-tax cut position and try to convince your position by providing some logics or empirical data.

In the end, it is a matter of what kinds of tax cuts may be more helpful for economic recovery (boosting investment or consumption), not the level of tax cuts.

while i am writing my paper, i developed my argument to be : Is the stimulus package going to boost the US economy or is it only benefit the minority interest group.

Cyprus and Almost Avoiding the Recession:

How a small EU Nation went from nearly walking by the financial crisis to junk bond status, a “questionable” Russian loan, in the works IMF/EU bailout, and its infrastructure disaster (and the likely source of it’s own demise).

Looks incomplete! Please provide your main research question and argument!

The Question: How did Cyprus, which seemed to have progressed despite the Euro Zone financial crisis, just slipped drastically to recession and to junk status?

Argument: A major infrastructure failure (and the subsequent policy response) systemically destroyed productivity and laid the nation with aggresively growing debt

OK. Hope you can provide convincing information to support your argument.

1) Why did South Korean government implement different economic policies to the recent financial crisis compare to the1997 crisis? 2) The reason why South Korean government implemented lower interest rates and loosened fiscal policies during the recent financial crisis is because of financialisation and the faith in “accumulation of foreign reserve” 3) First, I will talk about economic conditions and context of these two financial crises that became precursor to two contrasting economic policies. Then, referencing these two different conditions, I am going to delve into financialisation and the faith in “accumulation of foreign reserve.” Explain why accumulation of foreign reserve is a good defense to crises as opposed to balanced, minimal accumulation of foreign reserve. After, I will compare several empirical data from 1997 and 2007, and discuss policy implications. Lastly, based on my arguments, I’m going to propose policy prescriptions for South Korean government.

What do you mean by financialization? Also, it may be difficult to link “accumulation of foreign reserves” and Korea’s monetary policy. The existence of foreign pressures, specifically, the IMF program was a critical factor in the 1997 crisis.

Quantative Easing Failure and Detriment (working title)

Paper will discuss QE 1 and 2 primarily and show that both packages had only negative effects on the US economy. The research will be on the concept of “The Dollar Standard” and the confidence that is being eroded by wrong monetary and fiscal policy.

How can you prove the counterfactuals? In other words, what if would have happened, if the U.S.Government did not take QE 1 & 2? Do you think that the confidence on the U.S. dollar would be still strong as before?

The proof is actually a lot simpler, all I did was follow the money and came up with a simple answer: most of it went to paying off debt to unions (in the case of GM) or bailing out banks/insurance company so almost none went into increasing production. The confidence aspect is a bit harder to quantify because even with 0% interest rate foreign investment is still pooling in.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/09/04/fed-is-killing-the-recovery-with-quantitative-easing/

I have almost the same topic and I think it can help you too.

Amendment: After some thought I’ve altered my argument to: Quantative easing was done for political gain with no regard for long term economic growth instead we had short term economic “benefits” around the time of elections. Also known as The Political Business Cycle.

title:Monetary Union and The Loss of Competitiveness in Eurozone. , why couldn’t the current monetary policies of the European Union provide the monetary stabilization of Euro zone and help trade deficit countries such as Greece?

Most members of EU lost their monetary policy independence with monetary unification or converting to a single currency. Although this had many advantages it brought many problems with it. Most important one is how it resulted in loosing the competitiveness in euro zone. Paper will discuss that policymakers EU concentrated mostly on fiscal problems while ignoring the primary reason behind it , the competition problem

So, what’s your argument? The monetary union itself (creating a single currency) was the problem? Please state your core argument more clearly.

my argument is that the monetary union indirectly caused the problem. In other words, it caused the eurozone to lose its competitiveness which became the fundamental root of the current crisis

As we discussed, check out the trade balances among Eurozone countries to support your argument that the Eurozon in the end will collapse or cannot maintain its current form of union.

Check out the November 17-23 issue of The Economist it has a great special report on France also couple it with the special report on Germany vs Greece published in August.

Research title: Did Obama Government Solve Financial Crisis?

Few weeks ago, there was Presidential election and President Obama won the election with quite big gap with Mitt Romney of Republican party unlike many people expected 2012 Presidential election would be close match. President Obama will keep position again. During election period, Romney kept emphasizing that America’s economy did not get over crisis yet and Obama government’s plans during last four years were not worked well. President Obama refuted Rommey’s arguments with all kind of numbers but people were not sure that their economy status was improved because financial crisis is still going on now and Obama government’s plan does not look enough reformative as people expected. Americans voted for Obama because they expected that Obama could reform and change America in good way for citizens. However, people were disappointed when President Obama appointed Timothy F. Geithner who is from Wall Street as United States Secretary of the Treasury as previous Presidents had been appointed Secretary of the Treasury in favor of Wall Street. Purportedly, some people said Geithner had already been nominated for Secretary of the Treasury by Wall Street even before the Presidential election in 2008. Result of Presidential election, whether Obama would be elected or John McCain would be elected in the Presidential election, was not the matter for Wall Street according to their opinion. They said that President Obama is just Wall Street’s puppet that was under control of Wall Street. Not only nomination of Secretary of the Treasury, but also chairman of the United States Federal Reserve was disappointed. Current chairman of the United States Federal Reserve is Ben Barnanke, who served as chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers then chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, was re-nominated by President Barack Obama in 2010. We cannot blame President Obama for financial crisis. Financial crisis happened before President Obama took office. However, we can blame President Obama if he did not do well for economy recovery because President is the one who expected to solve this desperate situation for the citizens. Why Obama administration could not get over current financial crisis in the first term? Why they could not provide proper solution for the citizens who are suffering from financial crisis? Is Obama administration not enough reformative because Obama government so called “Wall Street administration?” This paper is going to talk about whether President Obama’s economy policies to deal with current financial crisis work or not and why achievements of his policy are not revealed clearly. It would be possible to think the reason would be President Obama is not enough reformative or he is too close to Wall Street. However, if we look at President Obama’s policy closely, we could see President Obama keeps trying to solve this crisis. We just cannot see right now. We just spent four years to make correction for long-term. We need more time to make problems correct. There are two major reasons we cannot see achievement of Obama administration right now. First of all, seeing the effect of every kind of policy to solve the problems that had been built for a long time takes time. It should be long-term policy to solve long-term problems. Secondly, situation is so complicated because many domestic and international organizations are closely related. We cannot consider only our domestic market. Our domestic market is related to international market and international politics. Because we need to concern international relationships also, it takes much more time than when we just consider domestic market. So, we need more time to make correction for our financial crisis which is structurally built for a long time. That would be why people re-selected President Obama.

First, you have raised too many questions: “Why Obama administration could not get over current financial crisis in the first term? Why they could not provide proper solution for the citizens who are suffering from financial crisis? Is Obama administration not enough reformative because Obama government so called “Wall Street administration?”

Second, your questions are too broad. I don’t know how you can handle these questions in a 10 page paper. Narrow your questions and make a concrete one.

Third, as your questions are too broad (and vague), you can’t provide a specific argument to that questions either.

Hi, Just my own personal opinion but I think the topic you raised: “This paper is going to talk about whether President Obama’s economy policies to deal with current financial crisis work or not and why achievements of his policy are not revealed clearly”

I think that topic is enough for a 10 page paper. You’d have abundant issues to comment on and it could help you focus,

I like this topic as it is closely related to mine, We need to just keep our own ideas in mind when actually writing the paper so that it isn’t too closely related and that our ideas don’t overlap. I think you have a strong concept of what you want to write about, however, the only criticism I have is that you raise to many questions and I would avoid that in the full paper. Try to stray away from a question/answer paper.

Why haven’t The Bush tax cut produced the desired effect?

The bush tax cut which is essentially tax cut for the wealthy has not produced its desired effect because those that benefit from it don’t reinvest the money in businesses in America to create jobs.Instead they continue Outsourcing the jobs they could have created in America to places where cheaper labor and less goverment regulations exist.These countries are predominantly third world countries as well as emerging markets like latin America,Asia and so on.

Check out the specifics on the Bush tax cuts and their beneficiaries and economic effects throughly.

Be careful when gathering information on Bush anything the information is so biased. GDP went from 10 trillion in 2001 to 14 trillion in 2007 that’s including the 2000-2001 dot com crash. Investment recovered back to 2000 levels only by the end of 2003. Same goes for GDP growth rate and exports. Then if you look at statistics, unemployment remained around 4-4.5% and employment growth was around 1% again this was during the dot com crash.

Also point out that the Bush tax cuts also included cuts for other income classes lower than the wealthy. Maybe also include WHY those cuts weren’t permanent and had a sunset provision. Current discussion is only pertaining to +250k and never the lower portion.

U.S policies on “Financial Innovations”

Some people say money is the root of all evil; some say it is the key to happiness and affluence. What we do know is that money is extremely essential in this world today and that’s why a government’s macroeconomic policy is crucial to a nation’s success and that is why some people say it’s the government’s job to be the watchman in the background or the referee when it comes to the economy to ensure fair play. However, this is not always the case. Over the past few decades, banks started using “Financial Innovations” such as secularization to help boost their profits as greed triumphed safe investments. This ultimately lead to their downfall in the 2007-2009 economic crisis. After trillions of dollars lost in the global market value, how can Congress prevent another catastrophy such as this?

How can you handle the question? I’m very concerned whether you can write an empirical paper on the topic. Let me know more concretely how you’re going to handle the topic.

Also, your argument is missing.

I really like this topic and I am interested to know how you approach the paper itself. I would actually like to read this paper just to see what kind of ideas you have that would help the economic crisis, and how you feel congress should act.

I assume when you mention when you securitization, you are referring to Mortgages. You should recall in your paper that those “innovations” started in the 1980s and reason why they became problematic only (or openly) in the mid-late 2000s. (And the according legislative acts between them whether they addressed them or not, or had stemming implications)

Title: The Impact of Deregulation

Topic: This paper will tackle a difficult subject: Why did the asset bubble occur? It is evident there are flaws to the structure of our financial system. I argue that in the past decades, the crisis was closely related to financial deregulation which has had the unintended consequence of destabilizing the financial system. Regulatory failure in the face of the evolving structure and role of financial institutions is in need of repair. However, regulation reform is no easy task; the wrong decisions may well make future crises more severe, while regulations that are too heavy can stifle financial efficiency.

What specific deregulation policy you want to explore in detail?

How about investigating the dissolution process of the Glass–Steagall Act? This is an essential part of financial deregulation proceeded for the past decades.

What was the intention of the “deregulation” (specifics?)? If there was a regulatory failure, was it unenforced regulation or regulation that could never sustain or actually promote “market failure” (is it a market failure when regulation encourages or misses?)?

Was efficiency encouragement the problem?

Why didn’t the first time home buyers tax credit generate the intended effect?

It is clear that the tax credit did slow the drop in home sales and prices. But it only had that effect for a short period. What seems to have happened is that the tax credit encouraged families who were planning on buying a home to speed their purchase up to benefit from the credit. In essence, it created enough incentive to get buyers who were planning to purchase a home in late 2010 or 2011 to buy in 2009 or the first half of 2010 to get the credit. This slowed down the deflation of the Housing Bubble, but did not stop it. Why? Because homes were still too expensive in terms of the long-term price trends and income levels.

OK. But it looks highly technical. I wonder whether you can handle your argument well empirically. You need specific data and analyses on the long-term price trends and income levels to support your point.

But, still, honestly, your argument does not includes any political implications or factors. I expect a bit more political economy oriented argument and analysis. For instance, why did the tax credit was not prolonged further? Why not launched more aggressive tax credits?

I agree with Professor Kang that you should incorporate a little more politics when discussing this topic, also it seems like a very difficult topic to discuss for ten pages. See how you can expand on this topic so that it reaches the minimum page requirement while staying true to your topic.

You will have to look at the initial spur in housing demand. What caused or encouraged it? Agreeing with the professor on technicals, analyze how the precursor compares to the tax credit (I’d include the mortgage interest deduction) all the while overlaying the market sentiment at each time.

Was there even a “housing bottom” as some like to say? You’d have to make an assumption of what range a house would have to be. I’d probably do analysis on a a hard hit market like Las Vegas or South Florida and overlay trends with legislation and tax code.

Why should Greece abandon its current austerity measures in favor of a more expansionary fiscal policy?

Greece has been in a recession for five years and is suffering from an unemployment rate of 24 percent. The country has been implementing its austerity plan since 2010 and it hasn’t helped at all in getting its budget deficit under control or spurred economic growth. Many economists say that its only making matters worse. Greece’s austerity plan has slashed the minimum wage, pension and benefits. These measures have incited protests and work stoppages. During the recession austerity measures are lowering consumer demand and cutting public spending hindering any growth. Greece’s economy needs a jolt in the form of government spending to get its economy on its feet.

So, you support the fiscal independence of the Greek government? In other words, withdrawal from the Eurozone, right?

If this is the case you want to explore in your paper, you need to figure out some key questions: The withdrawal from the Eurozone, is this a viable option to Greece? If so, why? If not, why not?

Think about applying the political problem of the “impossible trinity” as your analytic framework.

Title (working): Greek and German Austerity/Competiveness

Central question – Why is it difficult to implement austerity in Greece?

To answer this question this paper will compare the current situation in Greece with the restructuring/austerity that Germany underwent in the early 2000s across two broad categories of factors: economic and political.

Economic factors would include the actual amount of austerity underwent in terms of budgetary changes and unemployment directly resulting with them, as well as the amount of competitiveness gained, scale of privatizations (if any), as well as any decreases social spending or changes in how it is administered (in the German case the work-pay welfare system). Another significant factor is the way in which the national economy interacted with the outside world: if the country already has an industrial export base (Germany) and the austerity occurs in a positive world economic environment then it is likely to result in greater economic growth and thus less resistance. The opposite seems to be the case for Greece, on both sides of that relation.

The political situation would also be considered. A right-wing government or a centrist government is actually in a relatively poor position to carry out austerity, even if it is ideologically more predisposed towards that. A left-wing government is better positioned, as unions are less likely to resist it: they would have no one else as a political representation (discounting numerous revolutionary Marxist organizations who are forever waiting for just such a thing!). Another important consideration is whether or not the austerity program can be explained as something that is being done by the nation of its own free will and for its own benefit or if it is something that is being forced in from the outside. Is it against all of us or just those in the unions that benefit too much at our expense?

Looks promising!

How about just comparing the budgetary change for the economic comparison? For instance, what spendings were reduced or abolished (adjusted) in both cases, especially as to social welfare spending.

And then, you can compare the politics (both internal & external) behind the budgetary change in both cases.

Timothy Yohannan Why wasn’t the SEC able to foresee the financial crisis and prevent it from happening? In the future due to all unsteady and increasing debts for most advanced countries. In 2035 the debt will be through the roof and the global economy can’t operate with a major county such as the U.S with this type of liability. Why aren’t current policy makers able to pass regulatory laws that will prevent crisis? I believe that entities and the national government need to create regulations so that firms do not create bubbles and drops in the market. Political ethics and partisanship play a big factor in economic policy. The effect of regulation will impact businesses on their ability to maximize profits.

Which one is your main research question?

“Why wasn’t the SEC able to foresee the financial crisis and prevent it from happening?”

“Why aren’t current policy makers able to pass regulatory laws that will prevent crisis?”

Probably the latter question may be more promising. If you’re more interested in the regulatory reform, which has not been so satisfactory so far, try to focus on a key regulatory issue. For instance, reforming the SEC’s supervisory function on the financial transactions, especially on financial derivatives or creating firewalls among different financial sectors, or reforming the credit rating system or one of specifics of the Dodd-Frank Act. And then raise a specific “WHY” question. For instance, why wasn’t the original firewall idea properly included in the Dodd-Frank Act? Why wasn’t the credit rating system (or regulations on financial derivatives) reformed further?

As you may know, too much regulations can suppress the development or innovation in the financial markets, but too loose regulations can cause financial crises, like the 2007-08 crisis. So, creating a balanced model of financial regulation and supervision is important, but it is very difficult. How about trying to figure out a topic that has made it difficult to reform the existing financial regulatory system?

If you’re interested in the SEC functions, specifically check out what reforms have been carried or not carried out and why.

Title: Are unconventional monetary policies effective? Abstract: The global financial crisis, which is still on going, of 2007-2009, has been deemed one of the worst recessions this world has ever encountered. The United States, being the most economically successful country, has endured a painful recession that has been felt across the world due to the interdependence the rest of the world has with the United States. Under what policies did we employ that got us into this financial crisis? In this paper, I will focus on quantitative easing, the pros and cons of such an unconventional monetary policy, and what affect it has had in the past and the outlook of the future. Why is it that this unconventional monetary policy has been effective in the past but now the Federal Reserve Bank is struggling now to maintain this policy? How much easing is too much? Is there a limit as to how much help the Federal Reserve Banks can help the economy? Is there a point where the intentions to help wind up counteracting and making the state of the economy worse? I will address these issues and provide existing arguments as well as offering some insight in regards to what early economists would suggest.

All of your questions are related to policy effects of QE. But it’s a difficult to evaluate at this stage, whether it was effective or not. (Please read my comments on other QE-related topics). I understand that you’re interested in real policy effects of QE. But it’s too early to tell.

Instead, you may need to figure out first why unconventional monetary policies were taken for the past years. If you formulate your main question like this, you may point out a couple of political economy factors. Among those various factors, you can focus on one primary factor to explain it.

Or, if you’re interested the effects of QE, an interesting puzzle is why the U.S. government has adopted QEs repeatedly. A couple of factors we can think of this question as well. You can pick one core argument and analyze it further in your paper.

Title: 2013, The end of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010?

What are the possible implications of discontinuing all of the tax deductions that were implemented within the Job Creation Act of 2010 in order to keep the middle class afloat in the midst of the financial crisis in 08-09. Most of the provisions were made in 2 year intervals therefore 2013 is a significant year where the fate of the Act might be in danger. The act included provisions such as keeping personal tax rates in their pre-2001 levels in addition to social security tax rates being reduced 2 percentage points as well as many others. These provisions provide a myriad of benefits to the middle class and the small businesses, so I will focus on the possible implications of the discontinuation of the “Bush” era tax cuts specifically the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.

I’m confused. Which issue are you focusing on? the Job Creation Act of 2010 and its expiration? Or the “Bush” tax cuts and its discontinuation?

Whichever your topic, I can’t see your main research question, formulated by using a “WHY” question. What’s your puzzle?

I guess, in your case, for instance, you can explore a question: why did the Obama administration made a 2-year (a relatively short-term relief), despite the prospect of the prolonged economic downturn or deflation? Do you think the 2 year grace period was enough to tackle the economic severity related to job creation? If you think the grade period was too short, probably, you can explore further what political and economic factors contributed to such a short-term grace period in the course of legislating the Job Creation Act. And then you can stick to the most primary reason or factor to explain it.

The Gramm Lech Bliley Act

Bank balances and account numbers is one piece of information that most would think is private. What people didn’t know was that their information was the one that was normally brought by banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions. The Gramm Lech Bliley Act of 1999(GLB) was passed to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act. How did this act become an act, is the question asked. The argument that is to be shown in this paper is, has this act helped us or has it affected us to become where we are now? There are problems with the GLB stating that it doesn’t help out the consumers. The GLB act allows states to formulate protections that exceed the federal law. The state question is whether to allow opt-in standard sharing or whether to create protection of information sharing. In the first part of this paper I will discuss the background of the act. What is meant to happen with this act in America? The second part of the essay will discuss how it was legislated and what it has done to America. The third part of the essay will show you how it is being enforced today. Lastly, I will discuss my arguments on this Act and what I think it has done to America.

What’s your argument? Why did it pass?

How about focusing on the “political capture” aspect by Wall Street bankers?

Trusting Government A legitimate government is an essential part of any civilization. Living in a country where everyone is seen as equals has made me question why the bonuses given out by Wall Street firms have not seen a significant reduction when they had to be bailed out during the financial crisis? My argument is that the reason is regulatory capture, which has been noticed by many and even influenced the now popular Wall Street Movement.

OK. How are you going to show the “regulatory capture” phenomenon?

First, check out all the controversies as to the “ridiculously” high bonuses before and after the crisis. Probably journal search can give you much information on this.

Second, figure out how Wall Street financiers fought against popular criticisms for reducing the bonuses.

I really like your topic and I would like to know how you go ahead with your information and what you come up on your research paper.

Creating And Reforming New Fiscal and Global Policies (still working)

In the 21st century and the new age of globalization, one can see that there is much debate when it comes to the role of government in the economy. To our surprise we can still find that there are many who still believe in a liberal economy and still try to argue with the aged ideologies of Adam Smith. In this paper I will attempt to answer the question as to why the people of many nations are so afraid of government interference and, why many nations are so afraid to assume a more aggressive role in the global economy and market.

Many liberalist and free market radicals are opposed to having a government that protects and safe guards the economy. They believe that government should only provide public goods, and intervene only when there is no one else to provide protection for the well being of society. We can now see from the Financial Crisis of 2007-09 that the government bailed out many industries and imposed a stricter regulatory framework in which those industries should operate. In this paper I will explain that if the government reformed its policies, and used them adequately to protect all businesses equally, without being interested only in the big ones, the economy will fluctuate better and a future recession or economic downfall could be prevented. At the same time government needs to protect its nation’s local industries from foreign competition and also help those that want to go global and expand. The role of the government should not only be left to the most successful enterprises to take control, but it should only be the role of the government to provide more guidance and clear policies in how to control them to be fair to everyone else.

The idea of a nation or state that does not involve government protection and intervention in the market economy would just leave the economy in shambles and it would lead to the collapse of the economy. We can all agree that government plays a major role in the economy, but the problem is how the government should be part of the economy; should it only be part of the local market, and should it be tougher with global economy? In the first part of my paper I delineate how in certain parts of the world, as it seems to be the case of many developing countries, government should emphasize more in protecting its nation-state from the global economy with policies to protect its own local business from exploitation from international companies, at the same time, attracting these big businesses to work in their favor. In the second part, I will explore the idea of how many top or large corporations in the United States are dominating the nation not just economically but politically. Then, I will continue to find out why and how the government is so reluctant to take control with innovative policies that would bring more power to the nation. Lastly, I will propose ideas and policies that could work in the favor of a nation or state and keep to maintain a stable role in their own economy.

Great writing and very important topic!!!

But this is a book topic. It’s not appropriate as a short paper topic. How about focusing more on the second and third part and formulating a bit more specific research question?

Are you familiar with SuperPac? How about investigating political donation (or funding) pattern for the last Presidential election? Big corporations or rich people want to influence politics through various channels, and political funding is one good channel.

Of course, you can choose different channels (or sources) such as lobbying, if you have any specific case in mind. It’s up to you.

What is the mode of production? When you referred to American economy there were elements of both Capitalism and Socialism, a market economy can exist in both systems. Your proposal sounds like advocacy of a welfare state/socialism as the main mode of production.

maybe NEW FORM OF SOCIALISM, reforms that will work in the new age of globalization. But like professor Mkang has said this would be a book topic… who knows i may just write it! lol

Title: Quantitative Policy Effectiveness

Money plays a role in both iniquity and prosperity. In some people’s life money plays a role in iniquity, while in others it plays a role in happiness and prosperity. Due to the current economic crisis that began in December 2007, the money playing the role in happiness and prosperity seems very far-fetch. This paper analyzes the United States policy in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2009 by focusing on the United States monetary policy. To interpret the monetary policy, the paper will present the role of government acting in tandem, to prop up the financial system. To convey the point across, the analysis will show us the United States Federal Reserve System and other political entities trying to lower the financial crisis in various ways, but specifically with Quantitative Easing 1 and 2. The argument that I am going to discuss in this research is that why hasn’t QE 1 and 2 being so effective, along with what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Why did the U.S. government launch QE1 and QE2, and recently QE3 again repeatedly?

I think this question may be more suitable to explore further in the paper. It looks too early to tell whether QE1 & QE2 were effective or not . Of course, we can evaluate some economic effects (both negative and positive) of QEs, but most of all, we cannot evaluate QE policy properly because we cannot estimate the situation if QEs had not been adopted. In other words, do you think that the U.S. economic recovery would have been faster without QEs?

So, as to QEs, you’d better change your main research question which can be answered in a more straightforward way. For instance, why did the U.S. government adopt QEs despite strong counterarguments or concerns for inflation in the near future? This kind of question may be more manageable to explore in a short paper.

Alright I will go with the different question: why did the US government launch 3 QE?

Topic: Globalization and the need for International Regulation and Enforcement focusing on the International Market– the idea of creating a healthy global economy and the benefits it will have on the domestic front.

Why hasn’t this been implemented yet?

Globalization is no longer a choice for nations yearning for success, it is a prerequisite. We now live in a world of interconnectedness and there is no going back. We are linked economically, and socially. There is one prong lacking to make this a trifecta of “interconnectedness”—a political link. Within a world that has begun to function like an organism, where our domestic choices affect our international relationships, there is a need to establish international governance in order to promote healthy trading, in regards to activity and ethics. Why this has not been done yet is very clear. Countries fear they will lose their rights domestically—national sovereignty. However, with a lack on international governance overseeing trade, there are questionable things being done in the name of capitalism in other countries. It is regular practice where companies run away from tightly to lightly regulated jurisdictions to promote their market. They question if international intervention cause more harm than good for domestic development. A supreme international body with fully-fledged regulatory and supervisory powers over all financial institutions is the ideal solution.

Examples to consider: The Basle Accord of 1988, European Union (flaws, strengths, and where international enforcement could have strengthened this regional institution).

The Basle Accord was recently revised: Basle III. Probably you can explore the Basle Accord III: why the Basle Accord was revised in response to the current global financial crisis and why only some countries have complied with the new Accord so far.

Of course, by exploring the case, you can discuss the broad theme you have raised in the draft.

You may want to look at the Basel III accords pertaining to US regional (local banks who aren’t broker/dealers) and their interesting impacts on holdings of soverign debt. ( i do not know the basis on non-US but I imagine they are similar)

IE how does Basel III and say (at random) Apple Bank of NY and foreign debt?

Interesting topic. I like how you described the economic/social/political links of interconnectedness as a “trifecta.” Just remember to mention somewhere in your introduction how you will organize the contents of your paper. Also, a word of advice – consider revising the passive voice “Why this has not been done yet is very clear” into the active voice “It is very clear why this has not yet been done.” Good luck.

Paper question: How has the residential, as well as the commercial real estate market healed prior to the 2008 market crash and how can it continue to sustain a positive future? Argument: The real estate market has shown wide varieties of change for the positive after the 2008 market crash. As we are currently living through a ‘buyers’ market, I will discuss why we will see a positive sustained future in NYC real estate, as well as outline the key points that could suggest a possible ‘bubble’ again in the housing market, and prove them to be false.

“Healed” prior to the 2008? Probably it’s a typo of “heated”, right?

First, NYC is a special area where always demand exceeds supply in the housing market. So, I don’t think you can generalize your point only by investigating the NYC case. Of course, you can’t prove the falsehood of future housing bubbles in the U.S.

Second, if you’re going to explore the NYC case, try to investigate more specifically on city’s policy toward the housing market in NYC.

Third, as I have repeatedly suggested, please reformulate your main research question by using a “WHY” form. For instance, why have not the real estate market in NYC affected greatly from the subprime crisis? You can highlight some unique aspect of the housing markets in NYC. Of course, don’t jump on rash generalizations based on the NYC case.

Topic: Government of the people or for a selective few During the 2007-2009 financial crises the U.S government went head first into the crises in order to try and stop the bleeding (prolong suffering). The government implemented a number of different strategies to prop back up the financial system with the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation all working in tandem to elevate the crises. The approach in terms of policies taken by the government was that of government intervention on a large scale. However with this enormous injection of money by the government into the failing economy as a way to save some of the major financial institutions from going under, the government never considered nationalizing these institutions. Why was this so? With government literally pulling these Banks and companies out the pits of destruction with its monetary policies. It was only logical that the government nationalize these institutions so they could be properly managed until the government felt it fit to privatize them again. Some critics to this theory may say nationalization of companies is in stark contrast to what a free market should be like or that nationalizing these companies effects democracy directly. But when companies and Banks are allowed to grow to a level where their mismanagement can lead to an entire economic crisis, then the government needs to react and do so authoritatively. In my research paper I will be examining the reason for the 2007-2009 financial crises and how involved were these big companies in causing this crisis. Secondly I will be analyzing some of the arguments against the nationalization of major companies and offer my critiques. Lastly I will set out reason why I believe nationalization of companies deemed Cooperate giants even if it’s for a short period of time can prevent future financial crisis.

It’s an interesting puzzle. But your argument is not provided yet. Why didn’t the U.S. government nationalize banks?

The first section that plans to describe the background of the 2007-09 financial crisis won’t be necessary too much. Shorten that part. Instead, focus more on the debates on the nationalization issue: different logics that supported nationalization and anti-nationalization. And then provide your view, probably, supporting the nationalization option and convince me why it was a better policy option.

BTW, your draft needs much polished in terms of writing style. There are already many awkward expressions and ungrammatical expressions. Do proofreading and editing before submitting your final paper.

Rescuing America  

The economy was at a free fall by the end of 2008 and it was impossible To deny it, the economy needed a fiscal Stimulus Plan quickly.There had to be some drastic changes soon because the U.S collapse had also the potential to collapse the global economy . After a ten year period of cutting taxes and Increasing spending failed policy that lead to a 6 trillion deficit, president Bush was soon leaving the office and ready to Handout a new elected president a disastrous legacy . The new President had to accept from his predecessor a recession worst seen in 80 years, rising unemployment , a big deficit,failed cities, america’s reputation ruined, a war in Iraq and Afganistan and a FED that was about to go into bankruptcy.The stimulus plan was one of President Obamas first bill to pass, why did he considered it to be vital for Americas economy at that time?

In less than a month in office President Obama signed into law, without the Republican’s support,on February 17,2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 mostly know as the economic stimulus plan of $787 billion. the primary objective for ARRA was to rapidly boost economic growth, and save between 900,000-2.3 million jobs.The Act included direct spending in infrastructure, education, health, energy, federal tax incentives,expansion of unemployment benefits,and more benefits for americans. The Act also included long-term spending projects (e.g., a study of the effectiveness of medical treatments) and other items specifically included by Congress (e.g., a limitation on executive compensation in federally aided banks added by Senator Dodd and Rep. Frank). With Republicans against it, stating that it was only going to be wasteful,the stimulus package jolted the economy out of it’s coma and fixed the financial mess.

Consumers not spending lead to business struggling which made them reduce workers,then consumer don’t want to spend, which created a vicious cycle that the ARRA was designed to break. One of the best advantages of the stimulus is that we can all track where money was spent and how it created jobs by investing in  infrastructure, improved education to make America more competitive and giving”Making Work Pay ” tax credits to boost consumers confidence.

Good details on the Act. But I can’t see whether you’re answering the raised question properly: why did President Obama consider the Act so vital for the American economy?

Probably you may need to ask a slightly different question to include more political economy answer to the question. For instance, why did the Act pass so quickly (or easily) despite strong opposition from the Republican party? Or, why was the Act so comprehensive (in terms of covering scope)? Or the opposite question may be fine: why was the Act so unfocused or small scale, considering the severity of the crisis?

Check out more specifically which aspects the Republican party opposed to regarding the Act.

BTW, do proofreading and editing before you submit your final paper.

Should the US government set stricter rules and regulations for banks in order to prevent an Economic Crisis from happening again as in 2008?

I believe it is important that the government sets strict rules and regulations on US banks because the Banks have a large influence on the US economy. Without regulation, Banks would have the power to swing our economy for its benefit. It is not right that banks do not get audited. Such actions must be tamed through stricter regulations in order to protect the country’s economy and well being. This is important because it has a huge affect on everyone living in the United States. If these banks have so much power, then we must regulate their power in order to protect us as citizens of this country from being hurt by their greed. As shown in the documentary Inside Job, banks continuously disregard any regulations stated by the government. When caught in malicious acts, the heads of these banks are barely penalized, and in the end, it is the public that is most affected. In order to change this, the government must intervene and enforce its rules. The Dodd-Frank act claims to “protect the American Public” by regulating swap dealers and increasing transparency and improving pricing in the derivatives marketplace. Yet when Brooksley Born put out a legislation that it was necessary to regulate derivative trading, she was quickly shut down by The Federal Reserve’s Secretary Alan Greenspan. The first part of my paper will discuss the head banks and firms of America and how they were involved in the Financial Crisis. Secondly, I will go into what inside derivative trading is and how it was done. In the third section, I will go into what the Commodity Futures Modernization Act is and why it was implemented. In the fourth section, I will go into the different views of the CMFA. In the fifth section, I will discuss the Dodd-Frank Act and how it has been used. Lastly, I will gather all my research and prove why it is necessary to have government intervention in US Banks and firms.

“When Brooksley Born put out a legislation that it was necessary to regulate derivative trading, she was quickly shut down by The Federal Reserve’s Secretary Alan Greenspan.” Why was it shut down? How can you answer the question?

I understand you’re interested in the CMFA and the Dodd-Frank Act, and more broadly financial regulatory reforms. But, I expect only a 10 page paper, which focuses on a concrete question with a clear argument.

So, I guess it may be enough to focus either on the CMFA case or the Dodd-Frank Act. As to the CMFA, you have already raised a key question to explore. If you’re interested in more recent financial regulatory reforms, you can check out the Dodd-Frank Act and explore why certain regulatory reforms have not been properly included in the Act. Of course, choosing a topic of your paper is entirely your decision based on your interest.

The U.S. government’s macroeconomic policy in response to the global financial crisis of 2007-09 is a subject of deep contention. My particular topic is that of America’s hegemony, which is important because of the vast political and economic responsibilities/burdens which come along with carrying the distinction for being the world hegemon. To be more specific, I will be exploring the impact of the global financial crisis on the hegemonic title of the U.S. Many political scientists and economists are debating over the answer to the following pressing controversial question. Did the global financial crisis of 2007-09 weaken the United States’ hegemonic position in world politics/economics to the extent that other countries or regions (i.e. China or the European Union) will overtake the U.S. as a direct result of said crisis in the next couple of decades? In short, my argument is that the answer is no. I will be elaborating on my position throughout the course of this paper. Many intellectuals disagree with my argument, and insist that the U.S. is now weakened to the degree that an alternative political-economic player (or multiple players, for that matter) will surpass the U.S. to become the next new hegemon(s). They will posit the idea that the global financial crisis has wounded the political-economic capabilities of the U.S. so deeply that after the next several presidential election cycles, The People’s Republic of China or the European Union may be the subsequent imperially dominant geopolitical state. However, I firmly believe that this is not the case. The contents of this paper will be organized as such: the initial portion will investigate the conundrum of the paper; the penultimate segment will assess present perspectives, while providing my own opinions in contrast with extant judgments; the final component will supply empirical evidence to reinforce my thesis, before I conclude with a discussion on policy implications of my analysis.

ah, the indents didn’t go though.

paragraph 2 starts at “In short…” paragraph 3 starts at “The contents…”

OK. Your question and argument is clear. But a remaining task is how to prove your point. Which aspect you want to explore to support your argument?

Technology level, for instance, the number of patent? Quality of higher educational institutions? Superior political system such as the check and balance system (democracy)? Superiority of American liberalism?

Please let me know ASAP how you’re going to support your argument.

Why are economically weaker countries trying to resist austerity policy in order to resolve the European debt crisis?

Argument: The most important factor in resisting austerity policy is sovereignty of each individual European nation. Many countries feel as if especially Germany is trying to control and force countries out of the crisis by implementing strict monetary policy by limiting possibilities of receiving aid if countries do not follow up on the requirements given. These requirements include severe spending cuts within government institutions. This approach cripples negotiations from the very origin. Furthermore, because it requires a drastic shift within society and most citizens are not happy with that kind of change. This phenomenon then, lashes out to political leaders who are, in all European countries, voted in through democratic elections and therefore are not totally free from their domestic society.

Position: In order to resolve the European debt crisis austerity policy is not optimal considering the fact that each country is sovereign and no country is trying to be controlled by others. Countries have to be seen as partners and not enemies in order to resolve the crisis. Loosening austerity policy and implementing more government spending instead, is much easier to promote and negotiate in a union where 17 countries have to come to a consensus. Also providing more money to the market and promoting growth would benefit the Eurozone much more than trying to cut themselves through their debt. Considering the fact that there has been way too little growth to even tackle a slice of the debt accumulated over the years since the economic EU was formed. Germany cannot expect political leaders to fully accept the conditions put upon them because their career is tied to their countries public opinion. Germany benefited the most from the EU than any other country and therefore has to take the lead in the right direction, a direction that allows at least as much political unity than there is economic unity.

OK. I can get your clear position. But I wonder how you’re going to show the significance of “sovereignty” as an explanatory variable. In other words, how has national sovereignty made it difficult to revolve the current fiscal crisis in the Eurozone zone?

Who supports the austerity policy and who opposes to it? Try to figure out this issue clearly both at the Euro regional and at the domestic levels. And then choose a specific country case and issue (or sector) that can support your argument (& position).

SUB PRIME LENDING CRISIS and the involvement of financial institutions :

The American dream that many people know of was that of owning your own house and being called a home owner. That dream seems to be moving further and further from the hands of today’s generation. The main question of to my paper is why the financial industries were left to their own devices and creating a bubble that led to the financial crisis.

Greed and instability of financial institutions have made sub-prime lending which was to be helpful to those Americans unable to attain credit due to their jobs or history. Leading to banks to increase the long term interest rate to being double of what the value of the house is actually worth. Created to expand the American dream was made by financial and lending institutions as an easy way of creating money without the interference. Mortgage-backed securities that were made to difficult to understand and hide most of the insecurities and flaws of the sub prime lending. The flaws that the government had by not regulating and the question those financial institutions were left to do as they pleased due to the ruling of the Republican Party. did the SEC and other regulating companies ignore the signs that the private financial business and investors were leading the country to crisis.

The essay will discuss the origins of sub- prime lending. the creation of mortgage based securities through pooling and involvement of financial companies in the investing of sub prime mortgages. the fiscal institutions and their play in the misuse of sub- prime lending.

You and talked about this topic. But I can’t still get your main argument. on your main question: Why has financial deregulation (or more specifically securitization) been accelerated for the past two decades?

Review some existing views and then decide your position. Then, if you’re more interested in figuring out securitization, explore further how it was introduced and allowed before the subprime crisis of 2007-09.

Title: Why not Dodd-Joe? Why didn’t the United States government take on a more Keynesian approach, of creating jobs and tackling unemployment, rather than injecting large amounts of bailout money to banks? This paper investigates the action taken by the United States government in direct response to the financial crisis that occurred in 2007, focusing on the Dodd-Frank Act and its provisions.

Who is Joe? Keynes?

Your research question is good. But I’m not sure whether the Dodd-Frank Act can be a good example to explain the question.

Regarding your question, you can think of various factors such as ideological orientation of the Obama administration, electoral concerns (the last mid-term election), opposition from the Republican party (the Republican Party was the majority in the House), and some other economic factors as well. Out of various factors, focus on one critical factor that supports your argument.

At the current proposal, I can’t see your clear argument yet. Choose one and try to defend it.

Can i use the argument of bipartisanship? A divided house making it difficult to recover from the recession

Sure! It’s an important factor. Find some key voting records or gridlock situations to support your argument.

BTW, you don’t need to get my approval for your argument. Free speech is fully allowed for my class. It’s your paper, so your view (argument) matters more than anything else. If you think it is the key factor, just stick to it and try to convince it.

Why has a lack of bipartisanship slowed the recovery of Economic Reform during Obama’s first term?

Is that a better argument in itself

Why more quantitative easing is needed from the Federal Government? This past September QE3 was passed and although its results haven’t been felt I strongly believe more quantitative easing shall be done. Overall Quantitative easing is a stimulus to boost the economy be the federal purchasing a higher percentage of mortgages from big firms like Goldman Sacks to eventually lower interest rates so more people can qualify for loans. In the long run more loans being passed will drive the market positively. I, like Mr. Bernanke believe that three quantitative isn’t enough, the economy needs more to come in the near future to ultimately show drastic improvements in the economy. If no more were to be offered the efforts of past quantitative easing will be an effort wasted.

Why do some people oppose to the QE policy? I guess you want to argue against them, right?

If that’s the case, figure out the anti-QE view first and pick one of critical issues to argue against the view. For instance, inflation is the primary concern of those anti-QE viewers. On what grounds is this view wrong or should not be the primary concern? Do you think you can provide enough evidence to argue against this view?

Of course you can do. Inflation was just an example. Try to figure out those key points those opponents to the QE policy highlight to support their views and if your position is against them, pick one issue and try to argue again it by providing some empirical evidence.

You might want to examine the arguments against QE3 that stem from the “failures” of the earlier rounds of QE and Operation Twist.

If your focus is on more loans for consumers, you may want to explain why that is better for the economy instead of investment from savings or consumer debt reduction for example.

Research Question: Why doesn’t the Dodd-Frank Act eliminate the possibility of another financial crisis in its current form?

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act was signed into law by President Obama on July 21st, 2010 as a response to the economic crisis of the late 2000s. It was held up as a savior, a financial superhero of sorts, that was supposed to bring sweeping change to an unruly financial industry. But as it stands, the bill does not appear to have the superhuman strength to prevent another economic crisis. This can be attributed to many factors which will be discussed in this paper.

Since being signed into law, the act has been stagnated with over 60 percent of it not actually in place. Lobbyists from large financial institutions have been working non-stop to roll-back or lessen the regulations within the act. And to be blunt, some of the policies within the bill may just be ineffective by nature. Due to its seeming inefficiency the bill has been subject to much scrutiny. Even Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney proclaimed that he would “repeal and replace” Dodd-Frank if he succeeded in winning the Presidency. But the Dodd-Frank Act is just what is needed to regulate current financial services and it is essential to the financial future of the United States. This paper will defend the strengths of the Act, highlight reasons much of the bill is still inactive and recommend ways the few weaknesses in the bill can be amended.

Firstly, I will highlight some of the important features of the bill and why they are so important to the financial health of the economy. Next, the paper will shine light on the reasons why most of the act is still inactive. Lastly, the paper will discuss measures that can be taken to save the bill, either from its own inherent weaknesses or save it from stagnation and get more or the entire bill active.

I can get what your paper is heading for, but I can’t quite get what exact target you’re aiming at: what is your main “WHY” question?

“This paper will defend the strengths of the Act, highlight reasons much of the bill is still inactive and recommend ways the few weaknesses in the bill can be amended.”

–> What strength are you going to defend? What weaknesses does it have?

As your main research question is still unclear, your argument cannot be clear yet.

Do review the Act ASAP, and pick one primary issue you want to explore in detail.

Randall Richards

United States of America: Will the Federal Reserve be the key to a future without any financial crisis?

In order to prevent another financial crisis like the one that took place in late 2007 there was a very important law enacted known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010. The financial crisis led to widespread calls for many changes to the financial system. In June 2009 Obama introduced a proposal to a major change of the United States financial regulatory system so that nothing like what had happened would happen again. The main components of the bill were the consolidation of regulatory agencies with the ability to oversee and evaluate systemic risk. There would also be more transparency and regulation of financial markets. There was also consumer protection reforms including a new consumer protection agency and uniform standards for “plain vanilla” products as well as strengthened investor protection. The other components of the law include tools for future financial crisis which include a resolution regime which allow for orderly winding down of bankrupt firms, and including a proposal that the Federal Reserve receive authorization to make certain actions. There were also various measures aimed at increasing international standards for the way financial trades were handled.

It’s a good start you’ve already checked out some details of the Act. But,I can’t see your research question or argument yet. For instance, “Will the Federal Reserve be the key to a future without any financial crisis?” Is this your main research question?

If that’s the case, how is this question is related to the Dodd-Frank Act? Of course, it’s related, but it’s not properly stated in your proposal.

Also, as your argument is not articulated yet, you couldn’t provide your clear argument to the main research question.

If you’re interested in the Act, check out the original bill first and how the original bill was revised or skipped in the legislation process. You can formulate a question why certain reform was not included (or inserted) in the legislation process.

Title: The Statist Revolution

Thesis Question: Since the first bailout in the United States in 1970 via the Penn Central railroad, has the United States accepted the statist paradigm as the new status quo?

The author of this paper will visit the historical analysis of bailouts within the United States through the lenses of the Marxist, Listian, Smithian and Keynesian perspectives. Through these analyses, the author will offer determine the necessity or lack thereof for bailouts and whether or not the trajectory of American Politics is a move in the direction of statism. The author will take a look into the disintegration of the Bretton Woods System/Gold Standard in it’s correlation with an increase in Government’s willingness to increase debt limits which may have provided ripened climates for said bailouts.

Finally, the author will visit the moral issue of using a form of reverse redistribution in the form of bailouts as a push for statism or driving force for more self regulating markets. This point would be discussed in speculating if there would have even been a financial system left for the collective to utilize or if was ethically wrong to socialize the losses of private finance firms under such incredibly self interested decision making.

“Has the United States accepted the statist paradigm as the new status quo?”

–> Is this your main research question? If you raise your question like this, your answer will either in the affirmative (Yes) or negative (No). It’s not a good way of presetting your research puzzle. I have repeatedly emphasized that you need to formulate your research question by using a “WHY” question. In your case, probably you may raise your question as follows: Why has the U.S. government used more frequently bailout options? Or Why did the U.S. government bailout banks despite strong oppositions to it? Or Why didn’t the U.S. government use the bailout option more aggressively? Or why has the U.S. government expanded its intervention in the economy for the past decades despite the growing dominance of neoliberal economic thinking?

Anyhow, your main research question is not articulated enough yet.

Second, you want to explore your topic “through the lenses of the Marxist, Listian, Smithian and Keynesian perspectives.” Which one is the primary perspective you support? Choose one and defend it against other perspectives. That may be a better way of presenting your argument with clarity. But first of all, you need to reformulate your research question and then you can decide your main argument to answer the question.

Third, various issues you raised in the proposal can be discussed briefly when you talk about the implications of your argument or the significance of your paper topic.

BTW, don’t use the expression “the author of the paper or the author”. Just use “I” when you have to use such expressions.

You may want to revisit the idea of bailout further, and what “bailout” means. Looking even not carefully you can see what what grants and subsidies existed far before the 1970s.

If viewing from those perspectives (which is a large task, you want to include an Austrian perspective for a firm “Anti-statist” perspective which may include in minimal state perspective Mises (far less than Smith) and even anarchist Rothbard (I think useful when comparing to Marx). This would be a fast growing idea in recent years, (check Paul Krugman for a “neo”Keynesian view on them)

My thesis for my research paper is that, I believe that QE3 (Quantitative Easing 3) will help the economy of The United Estates at a short term because it will lower the borrowing cost, but at the same time it will create inflation at a long term because it will decrease the purchasing power of the American dollar meaning that it will devaluate the country’s currency because more money will be available. Also I will analyze why it took a long time for QE3 to get approved and what kind of politics were behind the delay.

The last sentence “why it took a long time for QE3 to get approved and what kind of politics were behind the delay” looks far more interesting than the short-term or long-term effects of QE3.

What factors were critical for the delay? You can think of a couple of factors such as divided government, elelctoral strategy, ideological factor and others. Figure out existing views on the pros and cons on the QE policy and choose one core factor which will support your argument and you want to explore further in the paper.

Is this a supporting argument for QE3 or against?

thank you professor i think i would focus more in the last sentence, which it has to do with politics of it. i feel that a lot of these topics here overlap and most of the students are focusing more in the Economical part of Quantitative Easing rather than the political which it will be perfect for me to write about, i just have to research the material again. any web site that you would recommend?

thank you professor.

@ JustinDebois no i will focus in the politics behind the delay between QE2 and QE3

Banking crisis in the United States has affected us and the entire global economy. But what was it main cause?. Sub-prime crisis was the main reason of banking crisis. Banks started to make risky investments by giving financial support and credit to people so they can buy houses even when they did not have the possibility to pay them back. By having this risky investments, interest rate started to go up. Banks did not worry about this since they were earning more money. Banks also knew that debt can be sold and economic transaction by buying bonds or credit securitizations, subprime mortgages could be removed from the asset side of the concessionaire, being transferred to investment funds or pension plans.

Indeed, “by buying bonds or credit securitizations, subprime mortgages could be removed from the asset side of the concessionaire, being transferred to investment funds or pension plans”, as you described, the subprime mortgage issue has caused the entire financial system crisis.

I can see that you’re interested in the causes of the crisis. But it’s not clear yet what specific topic you’re going to explore in the paper. As your research question is not articulated enough yet, you can’t state your argument yet.

In your proposal, you said that “Banks also knew that debt can be sold…” Do you really think banks knew the problem of the subprime mortgage problem, but continued the risky business just subprime mortgage business was profitable to them? If your answer is Yes to this question, your view is closer to the “moral hazard” view. But if your answer is No to the question, your view disputes the moral hazard view. Which side do you support?

Those people who support the “moral hazard” view claim that banks, even regulators, knew the problem of the subprime lending, but they continued the business (or allowed it) as they expected that if the situation should go bad, they could get a bailout support from the government, as their economic scale is “TOO BIG TO FAI.” In others, banks knew that due to their big size or significance in the economy, the government could not let them go bankrupt.

If you’re interested in the deregulation aspect, you may explore a question: for instance, why did not the government (financial regulatory authorities) regulate (or supervise) the subprime lending? In this case, you can find good information on the “regulatory failure” aspect from the Commission Report of the Congress on the financial crisis.

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• 07 Apr 2023

When Celebrity ‘Crypto-Influencers’ Rake in Cash, Investors Lose Big

Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, and other entertainers have been accused of promoting crypto products on social media without disclosing conflicts. Research by Joseph Pacelli shows what can happen to eager investors who follow them.

• 31 Mar 2023

Can a ‘Basic Bundle’ of Health Insurance Cure Coverage Gaps and Spur Innovation?

One in 10 people in America lack health insurance, resulting in $40 billion of care that goes unpaid each year. Amitabh Chandra and colleagues say ensuring basic coverage for all residents, as other wealthy nations do, could address the most acute needs and unlock efficiency.

• 23 Mar 2023

As Climate Fears Mount, More Investors Turn to 'ESG' Funds Despite Few Rules

Regulations and ratings remain murky, but that's not deterring climate-conscious investors from paying more for funds with an ESG label. Research by Mark Egan and Malcolm Baker sizes up the premium these funds command. Is it time for more standards in impact investing?

• 14 Mar 2023

What Does the Failure of Silicon Valley Bank Say About the State of Finance?

Silicon Valley Bank wasn't ready for the Fed's interest rate hikes, but that's only part of the story. Victoria Ivashina and Erik Stafford probe the complex factors that led to the second-biggest bank failure ever.

• 13 Mar 2023

What Would It Take to Unlock Microfinance's Full Potential?

Microfinance has been seen as a vehicle for economic mobility in developing countries, but the results have been mixed. Research by Natalia Rigol and Ben Roth probes how different lending approaches might serve entrepreneurs better.

• 16 Feb 2023

ESG Activists Met the Moment at ExxonMobil, But Did They Succeed?

Engine No. 1, a small hedge fund on a mission to confront climate change, managed to do the impossible: Get dissident members on ExxonMobil's board. But lasting social impact has proved more elusive. Case studies by Mark Kramer, Shawn Cole, and Vikram Gandhi look at the complexities of shareholder activism.

• 07 Feb 2023

Supervisor of Sandwiches? More Companies Inflate Titles to Avoid Extra Pay

What does an assistant manager of bingo actually manage? Increasingly, companies are falsely classifying hourly workers as managers to avoid paying an estimated $4 billion a year in overtime, says research by Lauren Cohen.

Financial Crises: A Survey

Financial crises have large deleterious effects on economic activity, and as such have been the focus of a large body of research. This study surveys the existing literature on financial crises, exploring how crises are measured, whether they are predictable, and why they are associated with economic contractions. Historical narrative techniques continue to form the backbone for measuring crises, but there have been exciting developments in using quantitative data as well. Crises are predictable with growth in credit and elevated asset prices playing an especially important role; recent research points convincingly to the importance of behavioral biases in explaining such predictability. The negative consequences of a crisis are due to both the crisis itself but also to the imbalances that precede a crisis. Crises do not occur randomly, and, as a result, an understanding of financial crises requires an investigation into the booms that precede them.

More Research From These Scholars

What explains the decline in r* rising income inequality versus demographic shifts, falling rates and rising superstars, low interest rates, market power, and productivity growth.

Why Do We Dislike Inflation?

This paper provides new evidence on a long-standing question asked by Shiller (1997): Why do we dislike inflation? I conducted two surveys on representative samples of the US population to elicit people’s perceptions about the impacts of inflation and their reactions to it. The predominant reason for people’s aversion to inflation is the widespread belief that it diminishes their buying power, as neither personal nor general wage increases seem to match the pace of rising prices. As a result, respondents report having to make costly adjustments in their budgets and behaviors, especially among lower-income groups. Inflation also provokes stress, emotional responses, and a sense of inequity, as the wages of high-income individuals are perceived to grow more rapidly amidst inflation. Many respondents believe that firms have considerable discretion in setting wages, opting not to raise them in order to boost profits, rather than being compelled by market dynamics. The potential positive associations of inflation, such as with reduced unemployment or enhanced economic activity, are typically not recognized by respondents. Inflation ranks high in priority among various economic and social issues, with respondents blaming the government and businesses for it. I also highlight a substantial polarization in attitudes towards inflation along partisan lines, as well as across income groups.

This is an earlier version of the paper prepared for the Spring 2024 Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) conference and the final version of this paper will be published in the Spring 2024 BPEA issue. I thank Carola Binder, Janice Eberly, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Francesco Nuzzi, and Jon Steinsson for helpful comments and feedback. I am deeply grateful to Alberto Binetti, Filippo Giorgis, and Alfonso Merendino for excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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