Oliver Hart and Luigi Zingales
National Affairs, Spring 2010
The financial crisis of 2008 had many causes. They ranged from a housing bubble to excessive speculation, and from inadequate accounting rules to reckless corporate governance. But at the heart of the meltdown were the financial industry’s distorted incentives — created in large part by decades of misguided government policy — which caused bankers and investors to take enormous risks without due regard for their consequences.
