How The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) Affected Speculation

An interesting article by Patrick Artus for Flash Economics Economic Research examines the impact of the worldwide response to the GFC on speculation. 

Given that rampant speculation—particularly in the housing sector—was one of the factors that precipitated the GFC in the first place, did the measures taken to sort out the mess curb speculation (the logical outcome), or did they fan it higher?

The article looks at some key data on global speculative activity to answer that question.

What was done to defuse the crisis?

Affected countries reduced interest rates to near-zero, pumped in trillions of dollars of liquidity and worked (or are still working on) regulatory provisions to...