`titrebThe Icelandic financial crisis and self-fulfilling prophecies: The chronicles of a predicted bankruptcy (2006-2008)`/titreb The meltdown of the three major Icelandic banks in the autumn of 2008 has been set down to phenomena as varied as: bloated assets in financial statements, an “adventuresome” deregulation, the lack of supervision, the banks’ poor governance, weak ethics, a macroeconomic disequilibrium and the absence of international cooperation. As a study of more than a hundred reports issued between the start of 2006 and the summer of 2008 by commercial banks, credit-rating agencies and public organizations shows, this banking system began melting thirty months before its collapse owing to a process of stigmatization. A circular argument based on analyses of the risks related to sovereign debt and of those related to the banking system laid the grounds for a self-fulfilling prophecy that would ultimately deter the banks’ efforts to refinance or reimburse their debts. Similar research could be conducted on other situations where opinions about the risks of failing sparked a crisis...