The ‘Troika’ is a word that is scorched into the narrative of the EU’s banking and economic crisis - a triumvirate constituted by the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. The modus operandi of the Troika is defined by the authors of this book...

This book examines the Eurozone crisis in light of theoretical and empirical evidence. The first half explores specific theoretical contributions within a framework of growth theory models to examine the two major pillars of the European construction, the European Central Bank and the Maastricht...

1 Introduction -- 2 What Went Wrong With the Euro?.- 3 Public Debt: Introductory Remarks -- 4 Was the Eurozone an Acceptable Currency Union? -- 5 Preconditions of a Monetary Union -- 6 What Was the Theory Behind the Formation of EMU? -- 7 Will the Eurozone Dissolve Into Its Constituents? -- 8...

This book presents an overview of the economics and politics implemented in the European Union and especially the Eurozone during the crisis of 2008-2012. Although it focuses on these four years, the analysis starts from the establishment of the European Union and covers the period up to the...

The drama of the common currency is a hot topic. The Euro was planned for the European Union's member states, bringing economically strong nations like Germany and Holland and weaker nations like Greece, Spain and Italy under one set of currency rules. A dozen years of its implementation has...

With the global crisis, the policy stance around the world has been shaken by massive government and central bank efforts to prevent the meltdown of markets, banks, and the economy. Fiscal packages, in varied sizes, have been adopted throughout the world after years of proclaimed fiscal...

This paper investigates the causes behind the euro debt crisis, particularly Germany's role in it. It is argued that the crisis is not primarily a "sovereign debt crisis" but rather a (twin) banking and balance of payments crisis. Intra-area competitiveness and current account imbalances, and...

Euroland is in a crisis that is slowly but surely spreading from one periphery country to another; it will eventually reach the center. The blame is mostly heaped upon supposedly profligate consumption by Mediterraneans. But that surely cannot apply to Ireland and Iceland. In both cases, these...

The scientific reassessment of the economic role of the state after the crisis has renewed interest in Abba Lerner’s theory of functional finance (FF). A thorough discussion of this concept is helpful in reconsidering the debate on the nature of money and the origin of the business cycle and...