Despite the large output declines suffered by emerging Europe in 2008-09, a major currency and banking crisis was avoided. This paper argues that European economic and political integration was a mitigating factor in this. Cross-border banking groups, in particular, seem to have forestalled a...

Using industry-level data, this paper shows that the European transition region benefited much more strongly from financial integration in terms of economic growth than other developing countries in the years preceding the current crisis. We analyse several factors that may explain this finding:...