In the long aftermath of the acute global financial crisis of 2008/09, the need to get economies back on track and to handle high levels of public and private debt has created conflicting objectives. Challenges yet to be mastered are the need to avoid counterproductive measures of adjustment and...

pt. 1. The stability merits of the euro -- pt. 2. A case for rapid euro adoption? -- pt. 3. The euro area- a shelter? Euro assets- a safe haven? -- pt. 4. Lessons- from euro area divergences, and from the crisis -- pt. 5. Post-crisis business models of banks in CEE

A time-varying natural rate of interest is estimated for the euro area using a multivariate unobserved components model. The problem of aggregating interest rate data for the pre-EMU period is directly addressed, and a simple method in order to adjust the risk premia in the interest rate data...