Symposium on financial sustainability of the public sector: A critical issue for the stakeholders

Initially, the global financial crisis that hit most economies in the late 2000s, was a crisis of the banking sector. However, it rapidly became a crisis of the government, as governments around the globe intervened by taking control of commercial banks and other large private sector enterprises, issuing guarantees or otherwise using sovereign power to bail out troubled private sector entities. Such interventions were not limited to national governments, but included some at subnational or even local level.