Since the creation of the euro and a European Central Bank, the European Union has persistently pursued financial market integration throughout periods of economic growth, membership enlargements, financial breakdown, and political crisis. While traditionally analysed in terms of clashing ideological orientations and strategic political interests, this book presents a novel and empirically grounded perspective on the issues around financial market integration by approaching them in terms of the knowledge problems that actors face. Drawing on European legal texts, policy documents and interviews with regulators, central bankers, and financial market professionals, this book is rich in empirical detail which reveals a close-knit set of knowledge problems, or paradoxes, of ‘the market’. These paradoxes are irreducible to a particular political ideology or national interests because they are rooted in the conceptual structure of the European treaties. Moreover, while these knowledge problems present themselves as uncertainties, tensions, and conflicts in practice, they also echo persistent conceptual and theoretical controversies in the field of economics. Indeed, this book demonstrates how ‘the market’ is adopted from economic theory into European treaty law, resulting in central bankers and regulators struggling with knowledge problems and conflicts paralleling classic debates in the academic discipline. This book will be of significant interest to political economists working on European economic integration and money and finance as well as readers of heterodox economics, economic sociology, and political and social theory more broadly.

Written for undergraduate and graduate students, this textbook provides a fresh analysis of the European financial system.

This edited collection assesses the level of financial integration in the European Union (EU) and the differences across the countries and segments of the EU financial system. Progress in financial integration is key to the EU’s economic growth and competitiveness and although it has advanced substantially, the process is still far from completion. This book focuses on the pace of financial integration in the EU with special emphasis on the new EU Member States and investigates their progress in comparison with ‘old’ EU countries. The book is the first of its kind to include and evaluate the effects of the global financial crisis on the process of EU financial integration. In particular, the book’s contributors address the issue of whether a high degree of financial integration contributed to the intensification of the financial crisis, or whether a low level of integration prevented countries and financial industries from some of the negative effects of the crisis. Although most of the chapters apply contemporary econometric tools, the technical part is always reduced to indispensable minimum and the emphasis is given to economic interpretation of the results. The book aims to offer an up to date and insightful examination of the process of financial integration in the EU today.

The SDN elaborates the case for, and the design of, a banking union for the euro area. It discusses the benefits and costs of a banking union, presents a steady state view of the banking union, elaborates difficult transition issues, and briefly discusses broader EU issues. As such, it assesses current plans and provides advice. It is accompanied by three background technical notes that analyze in depth the various elements of the banking union: a single supervisory framework; a single resolution and common safety net; and urgent issues related to repair of weak banks in Europe.

Assessing regulatory measures taken at the EU level that impact European bond markets, this book examines the desirability, utility, and feasibility of certain policy measures.