Keynote address

Professor Schwarcz's keynote address is now available for download.

At the symposium on 26 September, Professor Steven Schwarcz delivered a keynote address suggested that the crisis had been misunderstood.  He argued that the crisis had been caused by credit unavailability (rather than the other way around, as is commonly supposed).  Seeing the crisis in this light has important consequences for the way in which we formulate policies to deal with the underlying issues.  Professor Schwarcz discussed three of these in greater depth: the importance of protecting markets (and not just banks), the importance of diversifying credit sources, and ensuring that system-wide issues and flaws are identified and provided for.

Professor Schwarcz's keynote address was followed by a lively discussion.  An updated version of his address, which has been expanded to include some of the points arising in the course of the discussion. is available for download here.