Die Weltwirtschaft ist 2009 zum ersten Mal seit Mitte des vorigen Jahrhunderts nicht gewachsen. Die Wirtschaftsleistung dürfte um 2% zurückgegangen sein, in den Industrieländern um 3,5%. Dies war die Folge der Finanzkrise, sie hat zu einem Einbruch des Welthandels mit Folgen auf alle...

This Policy Brief discusses the growth prospects of the Central and Eastern European (CEEC) region following the current economic crisis. It argues that the 'integration model of growth' of the CEEC region was characterised by a very high degree of external liberalisation. In one group of...

The unfolding financial turmoil in mature economies has prompted the official and private sectors to reconsider policies, business models and risk management practices. Regardless of its future evolution, it already threatens to become one of the defining economic moments of the 21st century....

This Policy Brief discusses the growth prospects of the Central and Eastern European (CEEC) region following the current economic crisis. It argues that the 'integration model of growth' of the CEEC region was characterised by a very high degree of external liberalisation. In one group of...

Die Weltwirtschaft ist 2009 zum ersten Mal seit Mitte des vorigen Jahrhunderts nicht gewachsen. Die Wirtschaftsleistung dürfte um 2% zurückgegangen sein, in den Industrieländern um 3,5%. Dies war die Folge der Finanzkrise, sie hat zu einem Einbruch des Welthandels mit Folgen auf alle...

This paper investigates the European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policies. It identifies an antigrowth bias in the bank's monetary policy approach: the ECB is quick to hike, but slow to ease. Similarly, while other players and institutional deficiencies share responsibility for the euro's...

We develop a rational expectations model of financial bubbles and study ways in which a generic risk-return interplay is incorporated into prices. We retain the interpretation of the leading Johansen-Ledoit-Sornette model, namely, that the price must rise prior to a crash in order to compensate...

This article offers a narrative of the Spanish crisis building upon previous literature and the papers published in this issue. This narrative focuses on two main topics: (1) the reasons why the Spanish economy embarked in the expansionary/speculative path resulting in an over-accumulation of...

The goal of this paper is to provide stylized facts on recovery from economic downturns and to evaluate the role of macroeconomic policies in promoting recovery. In particular, we examine gross domestic product (GDP) recessions and financial downturns (credit contractions and stock price...

This paper identifies and characterizes episodes of structural change in the 27 years that preceded the Great Recession. This is done by performing Bai-Perron (2003a, 2003b) tests on 61,843 time series that span 34 countries, which collectively accounted for 81% of Gross World Product in 2013....