We analyze the feedback mechanisms between economic downturns and financial stress for several euro area countries. Our study employs newly constructed financial condition indices that incorporate banking variables extensively. We apply a non-linear Vector Smooth Transition Autoregressive...

We present a model with agency costs where heterogeneous firms raise finance through either bank loans or corporate bonds, and where banks are more efficient than the market in resolving informational problems. The model is used to analyze some major long-run differences in corporate finance...

The recent Global Financial Crisis (2008-2010) and the accompanying Great Recession (2008-2011) show that the level and the rate of monetary and financial systems integration deployed within the Euro area is not sustainable in the long run. Instead of acting as a buffer against external shocks...

This paper analyzes the causes of the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone and examines the policy alternatives confronting euro area governments. It suggests that pooling fiscal risks, creating an EU Treasury and issuing jointly-backed euro bonds is an optimal solution and the inevitable...

The financial and economic crisis in the Euro area has revealed a number of important flaws in the economic policy framework in Europe. On the one hand, the imbalances, which have dominated European development since the introduction of the euro, are not sustainable; and this is more serious in a...

The Slovak economy experienced a strong but short recession in 2009. The recovery afterwards was driven by exports and investment. While GDP growth was one of the strongest in OECD, employment did not reach the pre-crisis level and unemployment remains stubbornly high. This paper argues that...

The Slovak economy experienced a strong but short recession in 2009. The recovery afterwards was driven by exports and investment. While GDP growth was one of the strongest in OECD, employment did not reach the pre-crisis level and unemployment remains stubbornly high. This paper argues that...

The inclusion on May 1st, 2004 of eight Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) into the European Union (EU), and subsequently into the European Monetary Union (EMU) some years later, will cause deep changes within the political, economic, and social settings of the Union as well as in...

Using macroeconomic data for 1960-2018, this paper analyzes the origins of the crisis of the ‘post-Maastricht Treaty order of Italian capitalism'. After 1992, Italy did more than most other Eurozone members to satisfy EMU conditions in terms of self-imposed fiscal consolidation, structural...

In 2010, in response to an ever-worsening fiscal crisis, the ECB began purchasing sovereign debt from troubled euro-area countries through its Securities Market Programme (SMP). This program was designed to improve market functioning and restore the monetary transmission mechanism within the...