Despite the large output declines suffered by emerging Europe in 2008-09, a major currency and banking crisis was avoided. This paper argues that European economic and political integration was a mitigating factor in this. Cross-border banking groups, in particular, seem to have forestalled a...

Since 1990, countries in emerging Europe and Central Asia have undergone comprehensive economic transformation. These reforms helped achieve an impressive degree of income convergence toward the levels of the advanced economies, although at the cost of rising inequality and lower life...