Fall 2009 Course Schedule

Seminar: Financial Crises (LAW-795-009)
Gelpern

Meets: 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM (TH) - Room 500

Enrolled: 16 / Limit: 20

Administrator Access


Notices

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Description

This seminar puts the ongoing financial crisis in comparative perspective. We will use case studies from Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States to identify different kinds of crises, common policy and legal challenges presented by large-scale financial distress, and the factors affecting each government’s response. We will examine the relative roles of economic, political and legal constraints on government actions, the allocation of authority and accountability in crisis, the role of national, foreign and international actors, and institutional design for crisis management. Readings will include economic and legal theories of crisis and crisis response, historical and journalistic accounts, legal documents and other primary sources.

Textbooks and Other Materials

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Paul Blustein, The Chastening (2001)

Paul Krugman, The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 (2009)

First Class Readings

Home Building & Loan Assn. v Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 54 S. Ct, 231 (1934), available on Lexis and Westlaw and at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0290_0398_ZS.html (opinion only; dissent recommended)

Paul Blustein, The Chastening (2001), Chapter 1, The Committee to Save the World, pp. 1-18.

Paul Krugman, The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 (2009), The Taming of the Business Cycle, pp. 15-22.

Charles P. Kindleberger & Robert Z. Aliber, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (5th ed. 2005), Chapter 2, Anatomy of A Typical Crisis, pp. 21-32.

Questions for Discussion:

  • What is the relationship between a financial crisis and bank failure, stock market crash, bankruptcy and economic recession?
  • What public and private sector institutions and what areas of the law are most directly implicated in a financial crisis?

Syllabus

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