Public policy decisions taken by the White House and the US Treasury department during the height of the financial crisis were largely made on the hoof, with major decisions over which institutions to save and which to let fail largely dictated by then-Treasury secretary Hank Paulson's reluctance to be seen as 'the bailout guy', a former Bush administration economist says.

Speaking at Risk USA in New York, Korok Ray, an assistant professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown