More Economists To Meet with Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) will meet with more economists on February 26-27 to delve into causes of the crisis, considering in particular: monetary policy, derivatives, shadow banking, GSEs, and bailouts of "too big too fail" institutions. The forum is part of their “ongoing efforts to hear from academic experts and economists on issues related to the crisis.” Many of these issues were also covered in an FCIC hearing last October in which I was joined by Luigi Zingales and Joe Stiglitz. Here are my written answers to some of the FCIC questions, in which I stressed the role of monetary policy, GSEs, and bailouts in causing and prolonging the crisis.