The pandemic crisis, which broke out in early 2020, is still affecting human lives and economic activity around the globe, causing unprecedented transformations which were not foreseen just before its onset. The European Union, its citizens and the financial and non-financial firms active...

In the real world of less than perfect markets, balancing the benefits and costs of financial liberalization is usually impossible ex ante. Having been slow to liberalize, postwar Europe offers a possible testing ground. Looking at the experience in Belgium, France and Italy, a number of...