Class Central is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Online Course

The Global Financial Crisis

Yale University via Coursera

Found in Finance

Go to class

Provider Coursera
Cost Free Online Course (Audit)
Session In progress
Language English
Certificate Paid Certificate Available
Start Date
Duration 11 weeks long
Learn more about MOOCs

Taken this course? Share your experience with other students. Write review

Overview

Class Central Tips

Former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy F. Geithner and Professor Andrew Metrick survey the causes, events, policy responses, and aftermath of the recent global financial crisis.

Syllabus

Introduction to The Global Financial Crisis

The Common Causes of Financial Crises

Housing and Mortgages

Safe Assets and the Global Savings Glut

The Housing Crisis

Anxiety, Part I

Anxiety, Part II

Panic

Our Responses to the Crisis

Responding to Future Crises

Europe in the Global Financial Crisis

The Eurozone Crisis

Course Summary
-Course Summary

Taught by

Andrew Metrick and Timothy Geithner

Help Center

Most commonly asked questions about Coursera

Browse More Coursera Articles

Reviews for Coursera's The Global Financial Crisis Based on 11 reviews

5 stars 45%
4 stars 55%
3 star 0%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%

Did you take this course? Share your experience with other students.

Write a review

Henrik W

4 years ago

by Henrik completed this course, spending 1 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be very easy.

I really liked this course. It is a detailed acount of how the global financial crisis came about, starting with the housing crisis (including sub-prime) and the global savings glut. It continues with how the anxiety started and spread through the global financial system, turning in to a full-blown panic. Next is the measures taken to combat the crisis, and the course ends with describing the double dip recession in the euro zone.

There are two presenters of the course, professor Andrew Metrick of Yale, and Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury during the crisis. Professor Metrick is an excellent presenter, one of the best I have listened to. He is animated and into the subject he talks about, and takes care to expalain all technical terms he uses.

Timothy Geithner talks about talks about the government response to the crisis, which is very interesting, since he was actually there when it happened. Unfortunately, his presentations aren't as good as professor Metrick's - he is more monotone, and uses some jargon without explaining the meaning (for example, what are swap lines?)

The most interesting parts of the course for me was the section on the cause of the housing crisis (was it moral hazard, government failure, or bubble thinking), and the explanation of the euro zone problems and comparison to the gold standard (as a single currency) in the 1930s.

I spent around one hour a week on the course. I listened to the lectures on my phone while commuting to and from work. After every 5 to 10 minute segment there was a quiz with two multiple choice questions to see if you understood the material. If you failed the quiz you could just re-take it until you passed. After each module (around 10 video lectures), there was a multiple choice quiz with 8 questions (mostly), and you had to get at least 6 right. But if you failed, you could re-take that too. The questions were at a good level, not too easy, but not too hard either. There were no other assignments, so it was a quick and easy course to take. I finished it in around half the alloted time, and only used my commute time to learn the material.

One problem with watching the videos on my phone was that the slides had blue background. When the text was white, it was OK to read, but sometimes the text was purple, and it was impossible to read it on the phone screen. There were also a lot of graphs and charts (very good), but some of them where also very hard to see on the phone screen. Professor Metrick usually talked us through everything in the diagrams anyway, so it was not a big problem there. Timothy Geithner commented less on them, so it was a little harder to follow in his parts. All videos were professionally produced by Yale University.

Overall, an easy and quick course with very interesting material. I learned a lot, and their conclusions felt well motivated, drawing on research reports, and presented in lots of graphs and diagrams. Time well spent for me!

16 people found
this review helpful