This paper analyses the evolution of the safety and soundness of the European banking sector during the various stages of the Basel process of capital regulation. In the first part we document the evolution of various measures of systemic risk as the Basel process unfolds. Most strikingly, we...

Purpose: This paper is an analysis based on the comparison of the Greek Depression with the Great Depression of 1929 in the US. Design/methodology/approach: This analysis does neither focus on the pre-crisis period, nor on the manifestation of the crisis or the structural problems and economic...

We provide a comprehensive account of the dynamics of eurozone countries from 2000 to 2012. We analyze private leverage, fiscal policy, labor costs and interest rates and we propose a strategy to separate the impact of credit cycles, excessive government spending, and sudden stops. We then ask...

The admission by the Greek government on October 18, 2009, of large-scale accounting fraud in its national accounts sparked an unprecedented sovereign debt crisis that rapidly spread to the Euro-Zone's weakest member states. As the crisis increasingly drove a wedge between a seemingly resilient...

This book is devoted to the analysis of the three main financial crises that have marked this century: 2001 Argentina’s defaulting on its external debt, the American subprime crisis in 2008, and the current European debt crisis in Europe. The book pursues three major objectives: firstly, to...