The International Financial Crisis: THE CASE OF ICELAND – Are there Lessons to be Learnt?

Working Papers 248 Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson

Summary

Iceland became the first developed economy to fall victim to the current international financial crisis. An experiment with the smallest independent currency area in the world (pop: 300 thousand), based on the króna as a national currency, has ended in a national disaster. Iceland suffered a twin- crisis, with the value of the currency in a free fall and the national financial system in ruins.