Vox’s first compilation of columns on the crisis – what was called the Subprime crisis back then – was not the end of the story. Far from it. Since the publication of that volume in June 2008, the global crisis has both deepened and widened. Today, the editors are pleased to launch publication of the second volume of collected Vox columns edited by Andrew Felton and Carmen Reinhart, “The First Global Financial Crisis of the 21st Century: Part II. June – December, 2008 ”
Since the first volume was published, the industrial world has seen the largest bank failures in its history, and many governments have intervened in the financial system in a manner that would once have been unthinkable. Wall Street and the City of London, along with most other financial centres, have been changed forever. Many storied financial firms have failed or been merged away, and others are left with significant ownership positions of national governments. The economy of Iceland has suffered a collapse just as sizable as any of Latin America or East Asia during the last few decades.
Andrew Felton and Carmen Reinhart agreed to edit a second volume of compilation of VoxEU columns dealing with the ongoing crisis. Just as newspapers pride themselves on being “first drafts of history,” the contributions to VoxEU have proven to be the first drafts of the economics profession’s understanding of these events. The articles, it has to be understood, were written ‘in the moment’ over the past six months and so incorporate, to a varying extent, the history we have lived through.
The columns are grouped under three headings: How did the crisis spread around the world? How has the crisis upended traditional thinking about financial economics? How should we fix the economy and financial system?
To help place individual contributions within this historical sequence, an appendix updates the timeline of events from our June publication up to December 2008. Another appendix provides a glossary of technical terms.
The collection is available to download for free here .