The global financial crisis has changed finance and the global economy forever. The debate over its causes and consequences has only just begun. This book brings together VoxEU.org columns written during the height of the storm from June to December 2008, offering a glimpse of history in the...

This book brings together the views and predictions of leading economists published on VoxEU.org months before the developments of late 2008 in a volume that holds its own against the events that followed.

This paper develops a framework for evaluating the social returns to infrastructure investments that intensify product market competition. We use a circular model with asymmetric production costs both for incumbent firms and potential entrants, where unit transport cost measures the intensity of...

This paper presents a simple model for analysing the contribution of investments in physical and institutional infrastructure to the transition process. In addition to the direct cost savings, infrastructure investment generates important indirect effects, or transition impacts. The model shows...

This paper provides a non-technical summary of a framework for evaluating the transition impact (social returns) of any infrastructure investment that reduces transaction costs and thereby intensifies product market competition. The framework applies both to physical and institutional...