Students will select ONE among four themes and write a short essay of about 500 to 600 words pages double space professionally formatted. You must use references.

The themes are

1) Lessons learned from the financial crisis of 2008

2) Causes and effects of the financial crisis of 2008

3) Financial derivatives and the financial crisis of 2008

4) Ethical aspects of the financial crisis of 2008

Purpose and Scope

The purpose of this project is to apply material learned during the lectures in a mostly qualitative fashion. The project aims at developing the ability to critically evaluate facts and ideas that define the economic and financial environment and understand some of the consequences.

You should start by watching a documentary, or a reading a book on the financial crisis. These resource make references to numerous facts, introduces a number of key figures and suggests certain conclusions. The essay can be organized as follows but justified deviations from this structure are acceptable.

Executive Summary

The essay should follow the standard structure of a short essay.

Introduction paragraph that establishes the importance of your topic and your main thesis. It may be a question that you will later answer in the essay content, or it can be a statement that you support in the body paragraphs.

• A conclusion paragraph that reinforce the thesis and highlights key points from the body text. The conclusion should answer the question or complete the statement made in the introduction. It should discuss the possible implications of what you found and provide a sense of closure.
• Resources for a quick introduction to the themes (To be taken with a grain of salt!)
• Inside job – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(2010_film)
• The big short – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short_(film)

Too big to fail – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Big_to_Fail_(film)