The euro area crisis is the main external factor threatening the Swiss economy. In 2010 and 2011, the Swiss franc was rapidly appreciating against the euro, causing a drop in exports, losses for the tourism business and a rise in unemployment. This paper gives an overview of developments in the...

Against the background of the present financial crisis Otmar Issing and Jan Krahnen, members of the expert commission advising the German government on issues relating to financial crisis prevention, have suggested the creation of a "global risk map" to be enhanced by a global credit register....

This article narrates Ireland’s recent odyssey from the pride and envy of Europe to kneeling supplicant through the eyes of an econometric model of the government bond market. The exercise suggests that, in essence, two developments triggered and propelled Ireland’s drift towards sovereign...

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...

The Great Recession presented the US with economic and political challenges that had not been experienced since the time of the Great Depression. This article provides a retrospective on the government’s response to the crisis ten years after the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act, as the country...