Understanding Financial Crises: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses Stijn Claessens, M. Ayhan Kose, Luc Laeven, and Fabián Valencia By now, the tectonic damage left by the global financial crisis of 2007-09 has been well documented. World per capita output, which typically expands by about 2.2 percent annually, contracted by 1.8 percent in 2009, the largest contraction the global economy experienced since World War II. During the crisis, markets around the world experienced colossal disruptions in asset and credit markets, massive erosions of wealth, and unprecedented numbers of bankruptcies. Five years after the crisis began, its lingering effects are still all too visible in advanced countries and emerging markets alike: the global recession left in its wake a worldwide increase of 30 million in the number of people unemployed. These are painful reminders of why there is a need to improve our understanding of financial crises. This book serves this purpose by bringing together a number of innovative studies on the causes and consequences of financial crises and policy responses to them. Although there is a rich literature on financial crises, there has been no publication since the recent financial crisis providing in one place a broad overview of this research and distilling its policy lessons. The book fills this critical gap. It covers a wide range of crises, including banking, balance-of-payments, and sovereign debt crises. It reviews the typical patterns prior to crises and considers lessons on their antecedents, analyzes the evolution of crises and examines various policy responses––in terms of macroeconomic policies, restructuring of banks, households, financial institutions and sovereigns, and studies their aftermath––in terms of short- and medium-term growth impacts, and financial and fiscal consequences. It includes contributions from outstanding