More than 100 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...

The crisis in Greece and other mainly Southern euro zone countries has been discussed primarily as a fiscal issue. Current account deficits of the same countries have received less attention in spite of the relatedness of current account and fiscal deficits. We argue that the failure of many...