More than l00 episodes of bank insolvencies have been documented by Caprio and Klingebiel (1996) for the period from 1980 to 1995 - and this does not include the Asian crisis. About 75 percent of these were classified as major insolvencies with potential systemic implications. The overwhelming...

This paper discusses the creation of a European Banking Union. First, we discuss questions of design. We highlight seven fundamental choices that decision makers will need to make: Which EU countries should participate in the banking union? To which categories of banks should it apply? Which...

Five years after the first tremors in Europe's banking system, what makes the crisis unique is the absence of a democratically accountable decision-making framework; there is an 'executive deficit' that compounds Europe's democratic deficit. The author argues that the only way to resolve the...

This lecture discusses the 2010 crisis of the European Monetary Union and draws some lessons for reform. Crisis resolution has been difficult because the sovereign debt crisis of countries like Greece and Portugal has come together with real-estate and banking crises in countries like Ireland...