This course attempts to review the historical experiences of the four major financial crises that had happened around the world: the great depression in 1929–1931, the Japanese financial crisis in the 1990s, the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the US financial meltdown in 2008.  The central focuses are to know why these crises occur and to evaluate effectiveness of the government policies that dealt with these crises.  Lessons of the crises policies and proposals to reform the financial system will be discussed during the lectures.