Who should take the rap for the global financial crisis? It’s a question that has been tantalising economists over the past year — after all, it seemed to come almost from nowhere — and now a large number of them have had their say.

In a poll of more than 7,500 people, including many economists, the Dynamite Prize for the economist most responsible for causing the GFC has just been won by Alan Greenspan. Runners-up are the equally distinguished Milton Friedman and Larry Summers. Here are the citations:

Alan Greenspan (5061 votes): As chairman of the Federal Reserve System from 1987 to 2006, Alan Greenspan both led the over-expansion of money and credit that created the bubble that burst and aggressively promoted the view that financial markets are naturally efficient and in no need of regulation.

Milton Friedman (3349 votes): Friedman propagated the delusion, through his misunderstanding of the scientific method, that an economy can be accurately modelled using counterfactual propositions about its nature. This, together with his simplistic model of money, encouraged the development of fantasy-based theories of economics and finance that facilitated the global financial collapse.

Larry Summers (3023 votes): As US Secretary of the Treasury (formerly an economist at Harvard and the World Bank), Summers worked successfully for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which since the Great Crash of 1929 had kept deposit banking separate from casino banking. He also helped Greenspan and Wall Street torpedo efforts to regulate derivatives.

Or as the London Sun might put it: IT WAS GREENSPAN WOT DONE IT!