In the new member states of the EU which have not yet adopted the euro, previous adoption strategies have come under scrutiny. The spillovers and contagion from the global financial crisis revealed a new threat to the countries’ real convergence goal, namely considerable vulnerability to the...

In the context of the ongoing financial and economic crisis reference is frequently made to the Great Depression of the 1930s and fears are voiced that we may have embarked on a similar path. This article looks at the conditions prevailing back then and compares them with the present economic...

In the years leading up to the crisis, there were a number of warning signs that signalled a breakdown of basic fiduciary soundness. The following article addresses the problem of inattention to those warning signs and calls into question the commonly proposed causes of the crisis. This paper...

Before a new financial architecture can be established in the wake of the financial crisis, the increasing importance of the global financial market channel must be fully understood. This importance was illustrated by the unexpectedly strong dampening effects of the financial crisis on the real...

At the height of the European sovereign debt crisis, the European Central Bank decided to purchase distressed European government bonds. Even worse, and more importantly, the ECB is providing direct support of several hundred billions of euros to troubled banks via its normal monetary policy...