A Public Lecture by 2007 Nobel Economics Laureate Eric S. Maskin Professor Eric Maskin, a 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics, gave a public lecture in Gakdanghun Hall on October 13. In his lecture, he stressed the need for preemptive regulations to prevent the economic crisis from recurring. The title of the lecture was "The Reasons and Countermeasures of Financial Crisis." According to Professor Maskin, financial crisis can arise from unintended external effects, rather from unethical or unreasonable actions of the banks. The external effects, according to Professor Maskin, are unintended profit or damage to the others by one's economic activity. For example, a problem in rice market does not actually effect car market, but if one bank faces a serious problem, other financial institutions are affected, too. Professor Maskin suggested various preemptive measures to prevent financial crisis, including loan restrictions by credit quality and regulation of capital adequacy and debt equity ratio. Bailout through public fund is a feasible option, no doubt, but he pointed out that such solution can breed bigger crisis by giving incentives to dangerous financial products. At the end of the lecture, he mentioned that financial crises have existed in various forms throughout history and that the last year's financial crisis can happen in another form in the future. He closed his talk by suggesting that we at least have to find a solution to reduce threats of the crises although we cannot prevent every crisis. Professor Maskin was awarded Nobel prize in economics in 2007 for his contribution to developing 'Mechanism Design' theory, which emphasizes the importance of planning (Design) policies (Mechanism) to achieve social goals. He is currently teaching at Yonsei as a chair professor from 2009 Fall semester.