Financial Crises
The Fed’s Many-Headed Dilemma
According to Prof. William B. English, when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and sent ripples through the financial system, the Federal Reserve’s challenge of pursuing maximum employment and low inflation “got even harder.”

Faculty Viewpoints: Preventing a Financial Crisis
In an online event hosted by the Bank for International Settlement, Andrew Metrick, director of the Yale Program on Financial Stability, discussed the actions that governments have already taken to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from sparking a full-blown financial crisis, and the challenges still to come.
Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral
Nobel Prize-winning Yale economist Robert Shiller examines how the stories we tell about our lives and our society can spread from person to person, changing shared perceptions of events and shaping economic behavior.
Three Questions: Prof. Andrew Metrick on Paul Volcker’s Legacy
Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, died on December 8 at age 92. Prof. Andrew Metrick reflects on Volcker’s contributions to the Fed and economic policy.
To Prevent Financial Crises, Regulate Short-Term Debt
Yale SOM’s Gary Gorton argues that financial crises happen because short-term lending, while essential to the economy, is also vulnerable to panic when parties lose confidence in each other. In a new paper, Gorton proposes a method of regulating short-term debt and preventing future crises.
How Leverage Turns Market Corrections into Crashes
Leverage-induced fire sales contributed to the worst stock market crashes in history. Prof. Kelly Shue studied account-level data from the Chinese market crash in 2015 to illuminate how much leverage matters.
Lessons for the Crisis Fighters
Yale SOM’s Andrew Metrick and the Yale Program on Financial Stability are studying the global financial crisis of 2007-09, working to create the knowledge and tools to prepare the next generation of policymakers who find themselves in the eye of a monetary maelstrom.
What Will Trigger the Next Financial Crisis?
Experts offer their take on where the next crisis will come from. They’ve seen the risk, and it is us.
Is Our Financial System Still at Risk?
Yale’s Andrew Metrick discusses what we learned from the last financial crisis and areas of concern for the future.
Fighting the Next Global Financial Crisis
Yale SOM’s Robert Shiller warns that the shifts in public psychology that can spark instability are not easily anticipated.
Did Culture Cause the Financial Crisis?
Nobel Laureate Robert J. Shiller says that an event on the magnitude of the 2008-2009 financial crisis has to have many causes, but he sees “the spirit of the times” as a driving force behind many of them. In a lecture at Yale SOM, he described how he sees this spirit acting in everything from Fed policy to the growth in casinos.