From a “lessons” perspective, what this means is that EMEs should focus on strengthening domestic drivers of demand and instituting automatic stabilizers to buffer themselves against cyclical shocks from advanced economies. Lesson 2: global imbalances need to be redressed for the sake of global stability No crisis as complex as this has a simple or a single cause.
In popular perception, the collapse of Lehman Brothers in mid-September 2008 will remain marked as the trigger of the crisis. At one level that may well be true. Indeed, I can visualize future text books in finance dividing the world into “before Lehman” and “after Lehman”.