The losses caused by that collapse and the major uncertainty about who exactly was hit, led to a disappearance of market confidence and a full-blown systemic crisis. Global imbalances contributed to indiscipline 4. Although the relative importance of the various causes is subject to debate, there is now a rather broad consensus about the developments that led to the crisis.
The globalisation and integration of some parts of the global economy, like China and Eastern Europe, that had thus far been isolated was coupled with the build-up of global imbalances. Excessive debt build-up in Western, notably Anglo-Saxon, countries went in tandem with huge surpluses in oil-exporting countries and Asian countries.