Working paper

The Crisis: Policy Lessons and Policy Challenges

Publishing date
02 December 2009

Bruegel Director Jean Pisani-Ferry, with Agnès Bénassy-Quéré (CEPII, University Paris-Ouest and Ecole Polytechnique, Paris), Benoît Coeuré (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris) and Pierre Jacquet (ENPC, Paris, and Agence Française de Développement) provide an in-depth analysis of the financial crisis. The authors review the main causes of the crisis, pointing to three different, non-mutually exclusive lines of explanation: wrong incentives in the financial sector, unsustainable macroeconomic outcomes, and misunderstood and mismanaged systemic complexity. They also discuss supervisory and regulatory reform going forward, including an examination of the issues of moral hazard, the separation of retail and investment banking, the desirable size of financial institutions, risk management, the role of central banks, and other issues.

This working paper was previously published as CEPII (Centre d'études prospectives et d'informations internationales) working document 2009-28.

About the authors

  • Jean Pisani-Ferry

    Jean Pisani-Ferry is a Senior Fellow at Bruegel, the European think tank, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute (Washington DC). He is also a professor of economics with Sciences Po (Paris).

    He sits on the supervisory board of the French Caisse des Dépôts and serves as non-executive chair of I4CE, the French institute for climate economics.

    Pisani-Ferry served from 2013 to 2016 as Commissioner-General of France Stratégie, the ideas lab of the French government. In 2017, he contributed to Emmanuel Macron’s presidential bid as the Director of programme and ideas of his campaign. He was from 2005 to 2013 the Founding Director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic think tank that he had contributed to create. Beforehand, he was Executive President of the French PM’s Council of Economic Analysis (2001-2002), Senior Economic Adviser to the French Minister of Finance (1997-2000), and Director of CEPII, the French institute for international economics (1992-1997).

    Pisani-Ferry has taught at University Paris-Dauphine, École Polytechnique, École Centrale and the Free University of Brussels. His publications include numerous books and articles on economic policy and European policy issues. He has also been an active contributor to public debates with regular columns in Le Monde and for Project Syndicate.

  • Agnès Bénassy-Quéré

    Agnès Bénassy-Quéré is Deputy Governor of the Banque de France and member of the Bruegel board. Before this, she was the chief economist at the French Treasury. She was a Professor at the Paris School of Economics - University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, and the Chair of the French Council of economic analysis. She worked for the French Ministry of economy and finance, before moving to academic positions successively at universities of Cergy-Pontoise, Lille 2, Paris-Ouest and Ecole Polytechnique. She also served as a Deputy-director and as a Director of CEPII and is affiliated with CESIfo and IZA. She is a Member of the Commission Economique de la Nation (an advisory body to the Finance minister), of the French macro-prudential authority and of the Banque de France’s Board. Her research interests focus on the international monetary system and European macroeconomic policy.

  • Benoît Coeuré

    A graduate of the Ecole polytechnique and the National School of Statistics and Economic Administration (Ensae), Benoît Cœuré also holds a Master of Advanced Studies (DEA) in economic analysis and policy and a degree in Japanese.

    After working at the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee), Benoît Cœuré joined the Department of the administration of the Treasury as economic advisor to the Director of the Treasury. Benoît Cœuré managed the State's cash and debt, then defended France's position in international trade and financial negotiations, particularly during the global financial crisis of 2008/2009. Deputy Director General of the Treasury between 2009 and 2011, he lead the foreign trade support policy and general reflection on France's economic policy as Chief Economist of the Directorate General of the Treasury.

    A member of the Executive Board and of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank from 2012 to 2018, he was responsible for market transactions, the supervision of market infrastructures and European and international relations.

    Chairing the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures of the Bank for International Settlements for six years, he focused on the digitisation of payment systems, the rise of crypto assets and the emergence of tech giants in financial services, notably through its October 2019 report to G7 finance ministers and central bank governors on “stable coins”.

    In 2019, Benoît Cœuré took over as head of the innovation division of the Bank for International Settlements, which assists central banks in their digital experiments, notably in the field of payments, digital money and banking supervision.

    In March 2020, the Prime Minister asked him to chair the committee responsible for evaluating emergency aid to businesses in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and then the recovery plan.

    Benoît Cœuré is also President of Cepremap, a member of the board of the Paris School of Economics and a member of the high-level advisory group on post-Covid challenges to the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Paolo Gentiloni.

    He is the author of articles and books on economic policy, the international monetary system and the economics of European integration.

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