The conversation addresses the origins, development and consequences of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. After a definition of financial crisis, we will briefly discuss how financial assets are priced and why they can suddenly lose value. With this toolkit we will be able to understand why, in the years before the crisis, the US mortgage lending market created the conditions for the bubble to burst.

Finally, we will discuss how the crisis developed, why it spread outside the USA infecting many other countries, and we will analyse its lasting impact on the economy and society, as well as exploring the reasons why it triggered the subsequent crisis of the most vulnerable sovereign debts and banks in Europe