International political economy and the study of financial crises

The 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) surprised the economists and political scientists alike, prompting them to rethink their approaches to understanding financial turmoil. Economists lamented their lack of foresight in predicting the occurrence and spread of the crisis, while political scientists emphasized the paucity of research on the political underpinnings of financial instability. Scholars of political economy have responded to the challenge, building on the foundation of earlier studies and surging to fill urgent gaps in our understanding. Emphasizing banking and currency crises in particular, this chapter highlights existing work prior to the GFC, as well as more recent research that advances our understanding of government behavior, political institutions, and economic policies that contributed to financial crises. This work also suggests avenues for future research on the political economy drivers that lead to banking and currency crises.