This paper first reviews different interpretations of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 (and its aftermath), focusing on the proximate causes in the financial sector of the United States. However, behind the immedi-ate causes lie ultimate causes without which the crisis cannot be properly understood. These were mainly the global imbalances in trade and in cross-border capital flows, the systemic root of which lies in what the pa-per refers to as a “new Triffin dilemma”. This dilemma relates to the shortcomings of the present global currency system that uses the United States dollar as the key reserve currency, which has to serve both national and global objectives. Other ultimate causes are the trend towards a finance-driven capitalism in many OECD countries, most pronounced in the United States, and the trend towards greater income inequality, which dampens aggregate demand and contributes to financial instability as well as global imbalances. The confluence of the proximate and ultimate causes paved the way for the crisis.

Jan Priewe

Published in Berlin Working Papers on Money, Finance, Trade and Development, July 2010