This technical note explores how financial cycles repeat themselves over the course of history. We must be able to identify the patterns defining these cycles to understand the credit crisis the world has been facing since the summer of 2007. Students explore the causes of the credit crunch by putting themselves in the shoes of key players and deciding how they would have responded to certain dilemmas.

The technical note also explains other key causes of the crisis, why agencies classed issues as AA when they were riskier, why the crisis hit Europe so hard, economic policies that should be used to combat the crisis, and the solvency of the Spanish financial system at the time the case was written.