History of Financial Crises

This course has an ambitious goal – to investigate both the tools of risk management at the firm level through hands-on training and practice, and the lessons of macroeconomic or systemic risk through examination of financial crises throughout history. These lessons are important – whether it is the South Sea Company crisis of 1700s or the mortgage debt crisis in the United States in the 2000s, financial crises have shaped our world. Understanding history is the first step towards intelligent policy. To examine the financial and economic history we will read some of the classic (and also some of the newer) texts in this area: A Monetary History of the United States, 1857-1960 by Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz; Manias, Panics, and Crashes by Charles P. Kindleberger (for a history of financial panics); Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay (for a history of the 18th century South Sea Bubble in Britain and the Sword Blade Bank and Mississippi Company in France); This Time is Different – Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff (for why this time is not different – financial folly has a long history); and Fragile by Design by Charles Calomiris and Stephen Haber (for a cogent and disciplined analysis of banking systems across time and across countries – US, Canada, UK, Mexico, and Brazil).