After a period of deepening financial integration, the financial crisis triggered a fragmentation of Europe’s capital markets along national lines. Financial integration was prone to sudden stops and capital reversals because cross-border capital flows predominantly consisted of short-term...

In this study, we show that the main problem facing the Eurozone economy is the relatively low competitiveness of the PIIGS economies. Findings show that the defining trait of PIIGS countries is neither budget deficits, nor public debt, but rather the current account deficits. We argue that,...

A number of economists, following Professor Hans-Werner SINN, President of the Munich Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (Ifo), have opened a debate on the true significance and the risks entailed by the system of compensation operating within the Eurozone, TARGET2 (Trans-European Automated...

In the current debate on the reasons and implications of the Greek and Irish euro crisis, the intra-European current account imbalances have gained rising attention. Whereas Greece and Ireland struggle for austerity in private and public spending, Germany is urged to reduce its current account...

Conventional wisdom suggests that the European debt crisis, which has thus far led to severe adjustment programs crafted by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in both Greece and Ireland, was caused by fiscal profligacy on the part of peripheral, or noncore, countries in...

This paper aims to identify the determinants of portfolio restructuring in EMU member states since the introduction of the euro and especially during the financial turbulence of the past years. We find that, besides exchange rate volatility and traditional indicators of information and...

This paper analyses the issue of the dynamics of the TARGET2 system balances during the sovereign debt crisis, when some countries registered a decisive inflow of the central bank liquidity and others showed an outflow. The dynamics in the TARGET2 are here explained as being due to a fall in the...

In der Euro-Krise gingen starke Änderungen in internationalen Kapitalflüssen mit großer makroökonomischer Unsicherheit einher. Zwar ist es offensichtlich, dass beide Faktoren ökonomische Schocks auslösen bzw. verstärken können, es ist aber derzeit unklar, inwiefern sie direkt miteinander...

There are striking similarities between the 'Krach' of 1929 and the current euro area debt crisis concerning the adjustment mechanisms involved overcoming international trade imbalances caused then by the German Transfer Problem and war reparations in general and now by intra-euro-area trade...

The on-going crisis of the eurozone is calling its continued existence into doubt, and raising questions on whether it can function effectively. The view of the nature of the eurozone crisis as arising from ‘design faults' of the Economic and Monetary Union and a balance of payments crisis...