Guy Debelle: Lessons and questions from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)

Address by Mr Guy Debelle, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, to the Australian Business Economists Annual Dinner, Sydney, 6 December 2018.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

It is now just over 10 years since the date that people most associate with the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), namely 15 September, the day that Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. There have been quite a number of articles written in recent months looking back at that time and the period leading up to it. It is interesting to read the differing perspectives on the same set of events, especially those that recount events that I had a ringside seat at, or was even in the ring itself. As I have said recently, it's a bit like the standard line about the sixties, those who can remember the GFC probably weren't there. The sleep-deprived haze that was pervasive at the time affects the memory. Critical decisions were made under extreme duress and fatigue, particularly in the US, which by and large stack up well with the passage of time.