This is the introductory chapter to an NBER conference volume that examined the lessons to be drawn from the financial and currency crises of the late 1990s. The paper does not attempt to summarize the specific content of that meeting but provides the author's personal conclusions about crisis...

All of the attempts to end the euro crisis and to return the Eurozone countries to healthy growth rates of income and employment have failed. The options that are currently being discussed are not likely to be more successful