There is a growing consensus among both economists-academics and policymakers that there was at least one missing element of the financial safety net during the Global Financial Crisis. This element, which will probably improve financial stability (or protect against financial instability), is...

Emerging market and developing economies have experienced recurrent episodes of rapid debt accumulation over the past fifty years. This paper examines the consequences of debt accumulation using a three-pronged approach: an event study of debt accumulation episodes in 100 emerging market and...

The European Union has reached a critical juncture in dealing with the fallout from the 2008 financial meltdown that started in the USA and spread to engulf banks and the financial markets of Europe. The ensuing recession or stagnation in many member countries was compounded by austerity...

Under ordinary circumstances, the fiscal implications of central bank policies tend to be seen as relatively minor and escape close scrutiny. The global financial crisis of 2008, however, demanded an extraordinary response by central banks which brought to light the immense power of central bank...

Research in Economics on COVID-19 posits an economy subject to disease dynamics, which are often seriously misspecified in terms of speed and scale. Using a social planner problem, we show that such misspecifications lead to misguided policy. Erroneously characterizing a relatively slow-moving...

Europe 2020 tried to overcome the failures of the Lisbon Strategy. Goals set by the European commission were allowed to be adapted to take account of the starting position and the preferences of member countries ("national ownership"), the monitoring process was improved and the coordination...

The debt crisis has brought to the surface key weaknesses in the institutional structure of the EU. The public securities markets of the individual countries have turned out to be potentially just as vulnerable to speculative attacks as fixed exchange rates. It has emerged as an unmanageable...

This paper surveys the sovereign debt literature and summarizes the political economy trade-offs of seven distinct mechanisms for achieving debt sustainability. Two mechanisms – financial aid and asset exchange – are often underemphasized or entirely overlooked even though they can play an...

This article provides thoughts and guidelines on how a country could exit from the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and its currency the euro. We take the hypothetical exit of Finland as a concrete example. Although there is a way out of the euro for Finland and other member countries, exit...