This chapter updates the Bordo and Schwartz chapter in Volume 1A of the Handbook of Macroeconomics to 2008.

The overriding practical problem now is the tension between the global financial and market system and the national political and power structures. The main analytical short-coming lies in the failure to incorporate financial frictions, especially default, into our macro-economic models. Neither...

This paper is divided into three main sections. The first considers the implications of the Maastricht treaty for the external economic dimension, concentrating mainly on the inter-relationships between, and allocations of responsibility for, the decisions within the EC on the main policy...

Bank equity capital can play several roles; for example as a buffer against (unexpected) loss, as protection for other creditors in bankruptcy, and as ‘skin in the game’. There was never sufficient discussion of which role(s) the BCBS capital adequacy requirements (CARs) were meant to play,...

Bank Resolution Plans (Living Wills) should help with the resolution of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) in distress. They should be used to clarify and simplify the legal structure and make it commensurate with the functional business lines of the institution. Living Wills...