The global financial crisis is often defined by the collapse of the investment
bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008. This book, first published as an eBook
three months prior to the collapse, recognises that a global crisis was already
well underway. It highlights how losses in the US subprime market had spread
beyond the confines of the US mortgage sector and the borders of the United
States, how risk spreads had ballooned and liquidity in some markets had dried
up forcing large financial institutions to report significant losses. Bank runs
were no longer the stuff of history. The financial crisis that emerged and the
policy responses have been unprecedented in scale. They have also challenged
economists to explain where the global crisis came from, where it was heading,
and what could be done. This book brings together the views and predictions of
leading economists published on VoxEU.org months before the developments of
late 2008 in a volume that holds its own against the events that followed.
