Does anyone have some articles (mises.org or otherwise, and not overly long) going into the microeconomic causes of the financial crisis (e.g. excessive risk-taking &c.)?
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
You will need to rephrase your question. If you are asking how individuals caused the financials mess that the Western World faces then you won't find much as these behaviors that seem detrimental to the economy are not the cause but symptoms of the problem. The problems are created by central banks and governments who provide cheap credit that entices people to take on too much debt, buy too much stuff and take on too much risk.
This is especially true for "Excessive Risk Taking". This has only hurt the individuals who participate in it. It does not hurt the economy at large even if a lot of people engage in it. Keep in mind that for every risk taker there is someone with a lower threshold of risk that is selling the asset. So for example I own 100 acres of Florida swamp and some dope offers me 10x what I paid for it. The dope is taking the risk and I am taking the cash. Each of us is better off at the point of the transaction. Enter governments and central banks that distort the value of money. There is a lot of material on that here. See Gary North or Thomas Woods archives for breif descriptions of the issue.
Yes thanks for the recap, but I'm aware of all this. I mean stuff that examines the symptoms. ABCT is typically taken to be macro theory, whereas I've an essay question which wants it looked at from a micro perspective (the crisis, that is), things like the involvement of FNM &c. I used to have an archive of articles on this but it's all gone now with a recent format.
Here is a bunch, not all about this crisis. If this stuff is useful, let me know and I can help you find more like it.
http://mises.org/story/3479
http://blog.mises.org/archives/007155.asp
http://blog.mises.org/archives/009050.asp
VVVVVVVVV
http://mises.org/story/2673
http://mises.org/story/2995
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://mises.org/story/3375
http://www.lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff29.1.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff240.html
There's one in particular I am looking for that examined the role of several factors contributing to the crisis e.g. Fannie Mae. In the end it's all linked to credit expansion but I can't really delve too deeply into it for this piece.
http://mises.org/story/3566
http://mises.org/story/3110
http://mises.org/story/3045
http://mises.org/story/3053
http://mises.org/story/2627
If that fails, check the Bailout Reader and the Depression Reader
http://mises.org/story/3128
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/recession-reader.html
This one is older, but it might be useful
http://mises.org/story/986
Thanks, the deCoster and Shostak ones look good. It's not either of those but I'll try incorporate them.
Econtalk podcast of last week is on this very topic. Very informative and had a lot to give, at least to me.
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/10/calomiris_on_th.html