Finance at the Threshold

Why did the banks stop lending to one another, and why at this moment in history? Is the problem merely a matter of over-loose credit due to the relaxation of traditional prudence, or did global finance find itself at its limits, both technically and epistemologically? In Finance at the Threshold, Christopher Houghton Budd views the contemporary crisis from his perspective as an economic and monetary historian. In his contribution to the Transformation and Innovation Series, the author argues that global finance has brought us to the limits of what mechanistic economic explanations can capture. New ideas and above all new instruments are needed.