Abstract
The 2007–09 global financial crisis is widely considered to have been the most severe crisis since the 1930s Great Depression. During the two decades prior to the global financial crisis, localized banking or financial crises occurred in many different countries that contained warnings of the upheaval that was to come. ‘Origins of the global financial crisis’ describes some of these: the Japanese and Swedish banking crises beginning in 1990 and 1991 respectively, the US Savings and Loans crisis, and the Asian financial crisis. It then considers the causes of the 2007–09 crisis, including global macroeconomic imbalances and policy mistakes committed by the Federal Reserve and the central banks of other deficit countries.
