Both Japan and parts of the European Monetary Union have experienced boom and bust in stock and real estate markets, which have been followed by a lasting crisis. The paper analyses the role of a high degree of regional heterogeneity for public debt and monetary policy in the context of crisis....

Since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System diverging current account positions in Europe have prevailed. While the Southern and Western European countries have tended to run current account deficits, the current accounts of the Central and Northern European countries, in particular Germany,...

Before the 1997-98 crisis, the East Asian economies—except for Japan—informally pegged their currencies to the dollar. These soft pegs made them vulnerable to a depreciating yen thereby aggravating the crisis. To limit future misalignments, the IMF wants East Asian currencies to float...

The paper compares the boom-and-bust cycles in Japan and Europe with respect to the reasons for excessive booms, the characteristics of the crises, and the (potential) effects of the crisis therapies. As in Japan the consequence of expansionary monetary and fiscal policies is the hysteresis of...

Since a series of crisis events after 2007, the discussion about the adjustment channels of current account imbalances has been revived. We discuss the effectiveness of exchange rates versus macroeconomic policies to rebalance current accounts for a set of 86 mainly emerging market economies. We...

Japan hat nicht nur 15 Jahre vor Europa einen Boom-und-Krisen-Zyklus durchschritten, sondern auch wichtige Erfahrungen mit Krisentherapien in Form von monetärer Lockerung, expansiver Finanzpolitik und Rekapitalisierung von Finanzinstituten gemacht. Japan hat die Nullzinsgrenze bereits 1999...

The European sovereign debt crisis revived the discussion concerning pros and cons of exchange rate adjustment in the face of asymmetric shocks. In the spirit of keynes, exit from the euro area is to regain rapidly international competitiveness. In the spirit of Schumpeter, exhange rate...

The paper identifies based on the monetary overinvestment theories by Wicksell (1898), Mises (1912) and Hayek (1929) monetary policy mistakes in large industrial countries issuing international currencies. It its argued that a neglect towards monetary policy reform in a world dominated by...

The paper identifies based on the monetary overinvestment (malinvestment) theories by Wicksell (1898), Mises (1912) and Hayek (1929) monetary policy mistakes in large industrial countries issuing international currencies. It its argued that a benign neglect towards monetary policy reform in a...