We have reviewed the financial rescue and economic recovery measures taken in the EU at the end of 2008 and during 2009. Many member states have undertaken recapitalization efforts and provided debt guarantees to help systemically important institutions and restore confidence in financial...

There is a broad consensus in the literature that costs of information processing and acquisition may generate costly disagreements in expectations among economic agents, and that central banks may play a central role in reducing such dispersion in expectations. This paper analyses empirically...