Two recent proposals for overcoming the euro area crisis make the case for monetary financing of the public sector. Watt (2015) proposes that the ECB finances public investment directly, Pâris and Wyplosz (2014) contend that public debt may be effectively restructured by burying parts of it in...

After the 2008 financial crash governments and central banks had to rescue banks which had become insolvent or illiquid, and whose failure threatened the Western financial system. The bill for this taxpayer funded bailout came to over USD 20 trillion globally, including assistance from US, EU,...