Chief Economic Analyst (613-951-9162).

The World Bank identified 33 countries where high food prices caused civil unrest. From “A Challenge of Economic Statecraft.” Address by Robert Zoellick to Center for Global Development, April 2, 2008.

From the Daily, March 16, 2009.

This paragraph is based on a presentation by Dennis Desrosiers, February 19, 2009, to the Treasury Management Association of Canada.

William Poole, “The Credit Crunch of 2007-08: Lessons Private and Public.” Business Economics, Vol. 44, No. 1, 2009

For more details on the unfolding of the crisis, especially the withdrawal of money market funds from the commercial paper market, see Ben Bernanke “The Crisis and the Policy Response.” At the Stamp Lecture, London School of Economics, January 13, 2009.

The problem at European banks (like Northern Rock in Britain, Hypo Real Estate in Germany and those in Iceland) was their reliance on money markets and not deposits for their funds when markets froze.

The Fed’s massive response, guaranteeing trillions of dollars of transactions (often with money provided by the US Treasury Department), contrasts with the European Central Bank, which does not have the backing of a single federal government to lend its guarantees the same credibility.

P. 12, Michael Mussa, “Adam Smith and the Political Economy of a Modern Financial Crisis.” Business Economics, Vol. 44, No. 1, 2009. For an extensive analysis of the Fed’s balance sheet, see William Gavin, “More Money: Understanding Recent Changes in the Monetary Base.” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, March/April 2009.