Finanskrisen, en studie om Irland och Island

Sammanfattning: This essay concerns the financial crisis with a focus on Iceland and Ireland. We try to describe the events leading up to the crisis, the causes behind it and what factors were the most important. Furthermore we try to analyze what variables affect the GDP-gap prior to and after the crisis in the two countries. The reason we chose the two countries are their many similarities and the crucial difference concerning policy-making in that one has a fixed and one a floating exchange rate. The variables we include in our multiple regression model are the real interest rate, the real exchange rate and the change in house prices. We analyze these variables with a starting in the theories of the Mundell-Fleming model and the theories of Irving Fisher concerning expansionary phases and depressions. Our results are ambiguous but they implicate that the theories cannot fully explain what happens in the real economy.