Die Schuldenkrise in der EWU ist entstanden, weil sich die Staaten in „fremder Währung“ verschulden müssen. Diese Konstellation war als Ordnungsrahmen bei der Gründung der Währungsunion vorgesehen, führte aber dazu, dass sich die Staaten von den internationalen Finanzmärkten abhängig...

Gaps in competitiveness, rooted in economic as well as in political factors, characterise postwar European economic history. The eurozone experience showed the emergence of large current account imbalances. The peculiar mixture of financial markets integration and national cycles in wages and...

Low inflation on goods markets provides no reliable precondition for asset-market stability; it might even promote the emergence of bubbles because interest rates and risk premia appear to be low. A further factor driving asset demand is easy availability of credit, which in turn roots in the...

Economists in the public are accused of propagating highly professional, but unrealistic theories that mislead market agents and policy makers to place too much confidence in rational behaviour and market equilibrium. The paper analyses to what extent the US banking crisis and the euro crisis...