The Subprime Crisis and its International Consequences

On April 8, the Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States and Europe along with the Institut Montaigne and the Institut de l’entreprise hosted an international conference in Paris, “The Subprime Crisis and its International Consequences: What Happened and How to Avoid Similar Crises?”

With the problems in the subprime mortgage market having grown into a full-blown crisis of the international financial system, the conference brought together leading economists and practitioners to examine the questions of how this crisis happened and how to avoid a similar event in the future. The event featured such key figures as former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, economists Martin Baily and Douglas Elmendorf of Brookings and Jean Tirole of Institut d’Économie Industrielle in Toulouse, and business leaders Michel Pébereau of BNP Paribas and Claude Bébéar of AXA and Institut Montaigne.