ABSTRACT

This chapter highlights the failure of the coordination mechanisms, so-called conventions necessary for the functioning of the globalized banking sector. The economic convention theory approach gives insight into the genesis and the deepening of the financial crisis. The strategic school has its roots in the work of the philosopher of language, Lewis who used the game theory of Schelling to describe the multiplicity of Nash equilibria associated with coordination games. Conventions provide to individuals a rational fixed point, and therefore a good reason to choose”. The conventions evolve endogenously because of the dissent of certain actors or the dissonance of the convention after a contextual evolution. State action, as illustrated by the case of Russia, has been to first replace and second restore conventions necessary for economic development. The ruptures of international conventions that appeared in mature countries have spread in fast-growing countries because of the globalization of financial systems.