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Recent Financial Crisis

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Current financial crisis

Economic growth involves metamorphosis of the financial system. Forms of banks and bank money change. These changes, if not addressed, leave the banking system vulnerable to crisis. There is no greater challenge in economics than to understand and prevent financial crises. The financial crisis of 2007-2008 provides the opportunity to reassess our understanding of crises. All financial crises are at root bank runs, because bank debt—of all forms—is vulnerable to sudden exit by bank debt holders.
The current crisis raises issues for crisis theory. And, empirically, studying crises is challenging because of small samples and incomplete data.

*Written as a contribution for Trade, Globalization and Development: Essays in Honor of Kalyan Sanyal, edited by Sugata Marjit and Rajat Acharya (Springer Verlag; forthcoming). Some of this essay draws from material in my book Misunderstanding Financial Crises (Oxford University Press; forthcoming November 2012). I worked at AIG Financial Products as a consultant from 1996-2008. I thank Doug Diamond, Bengt Holmström, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Guillermo Ordoňez for comments.1

1. Introduction
Economic development does not result in the elimination of financial crises. The recent financial crisis of 2007-2009 in the United States and Europe shows that market economies, however much they grow and change, are still susceptible to collapse or near-collapse from financial crisis. This is a staggering thought. And it came as a surprise, as financial crises were thought to be things of the past for developed economies, now only occurring in emerging markets. The fact of the crisis occurrence should give pause to economists. While it may take many years to fully understand the recent crisis, in this essay I offer some preliminary thoughts on crises. I do not review the academic literature, but rather

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