The global financial crisis, which began in 2007, apart from the disruptions in the economies of most countries in the world, led to the impairment of the authority of economists, and to some extent to the impairment of the subject of economics itself. From different sides, naturally, the following questions were posed: what were the causes of the crisis, who is responsible for its outbreak, how does the crisis differ from previous ones, is the world on the verge of another great depression? Also, the question arose why politicians and economists responsible for economic policy did not warn against the oncoming threat in time. Academics and publicists discussed heatedly the reason why, despite the continuous development of the theory of economics and the advancement of research methods applied by economists, once again they failed to prevent perturbation in the world economy. Such voices in a sense put the economists on the spot and forced them to account for the circumstances. It is striking, however, that both diagnoses and recipes for recovery presented in specialized journals as well as in the media directed at the wide public were significantly diversified. media directed at the wide public were significantly diversified.

The cause of the crisis is associated with, on the one hand, the deepening financialization in recent decades that was accompanied by excessive deregulation of financial markets, which resulted in speculations of the derivatives conducted on a global scale being made beyond the control of governments. On the other hand, though, the emphasis is placed on the mistakes committed by Federal Reserve System (expansive monetary policy and artificial reduction of the interest rates), subjecting economic policy to short-term political needs, the creation of a defective institutional structure on the American property market as well as the falling moral standards of the participants of economic life (see e.g. Barro 2009; Becker, Myerson, Scholes 2009; Bernanke 2010; Boettke, Smith and Snow 2011; Cochrane 2011; Colander 2011; Kates 2011; Krugman 2009; Romer 2009; Skidelsky 2009; V. Smith 2010; Stiglitz 2012).