The financial crisis of 2007–10 has presented a number of key policy challenges for those concerned with the long-term stability of the euro area. It has shown that price stability as provided by the European Central Bank is not enough to guarantee financial stability, and exposed fault lines in governance and deficiencies in the architecture of the financial supervisory and regulatory framework. This book addresses these and other issues, including why the crisis affected some countries more than others, whether the euro is still attractive for new EU states, and what policy changes and structural reforms, both macro and micro, should be undertaken to ensure its future viability. Written by a team of leading academic and central bank economists, the book also includes chapters on the cross-country incidence of the crisis, the Irish crisis and ECB monetary policy during the crisis, and studies on Spain, the Baltics, Slovakia and Slovenia.

While the use of public resources is critical to cushion the impact of the financial crisis on the euro-area economy, it is key that the entailed fiscal costs not be seen by markets as undermining fiscal sustainability. From this perspective, to what extent do movements in euro area sovereign spreads reflect country-specific solvency concerns? In line with previous studies, the paper suggests that euro area sovereign risk premium differentials tend to comove over time and are mainly driven by a common time-varying factor, mimicking global risk repricing. Since October 2008, however, there is evidence that markets have become progressively more concerned about the potential fiscal implications of national financial sectors' frailty and future debt dynamics. The liquidity of sovereign bond markets still seems to play a significant (albeit fairly limited) role in explaining changes in euro area spreads.

Contents: (1) Overview: Financial Architecture; Economic Performance; (2) The Financial Crisis and the European Union; (3) Phase I ¿ Build-up; (4) Phase II ¿ Liquidity Issues: Central Bank Operations; Interest Rates; Currency Swap Facilities; Depositor Guarantees; (5) Phase III ¿ Solvency and Deleveraging: The ¿European Framework for Action¿; ¿Bad Banks¿; (6) Phase IV ¿ Fiscal Intervention; European Economic Recovery Plan; Germany; France; United Kingdom; (7) Outlook. Charts and tables.

This book analyzes the effects of the recent crisis and evaluates potential solutions to the gridlock that is currently dominating the Eurozone and the European Union, concerning both the monetary policy and the budgetary and fiscal policy. The timely study highlights the main challenges that European political leaders will face in the months to come. Furthermore, its interdisciplinary approach embraces economic, financial and legal perspectives, so as to ensure the global coherence and comprehensiveness of its content. The contributors to this volume are prominent experts from the areas of Economics, Finance, Law, and Political Science, offering readers a multifaceted view of the topics discussed.

The euro area remains in a state of flux and appears to be unsustainable in its present form. The outcome of the crisis may be unknown for years and a judgement on the project’s success or failure may be out of reach for decades. In the meantime, analysts, portfolio managers and traders will still have daily, weekly, quarterly and annual benchmarks. They will have to analyze economic developments in the euro area and their impacts on financial assets. The objective of this book is to provide a framework for that analysis that is comprehensible to most financial market participants. The book begins with a focus on coincident and leading economic indicators for the euro area. The following section looks at euro-area institutions. The next chapter focuses on the euro crisis. It attempts to provide an explanation of its origins and a glimpse of the potential outcomes. In addition, the tools needed to analyze the crisis as it evolves are presented. The last sections provide information unique to the economies of Germany, France, the U.K., Switzerland, Sweden and Norway.

The Euro and Economic Stability assesses the euro area's merits as a shelter and the merits of euro assets as a safe haven and reviews the case for rapid euro adoption from a post-crisis view. Policymakers and economists provide relevant lessons from euro area divergences for future euro area members and, more generally, from the financial crisis, while banking representatives discuss post-crisis business models of banks in the area. Last but not least, a theoretical introductory chapter fills the gap between mainstream macroeconomic modelling and real-world decision-making. The prime audience for this invaluable book will be economists and other experts in the fields of economic policy and European integration from central, commercial and investment banks, governments, international organizations, universities and research institutes. The book is also aimed at readers with a particular interest in the contributions' special regional focus: Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.

The first twenty years of the European Central Bank (ECB) offer a clear demonstration of how a central bank can navigate macroeconomic insecurity and crisis. As the global economy moves into a new phase of unheralded uncertainty, the story of the ECB holds multiple lessons of wider significance for the central banking community and researchers of monetary policy. This volume provides a unique account of how the ECB has reacted to the challenges confronting the euro area through its monetary policy, turning to innovative measures and unprecedented policy actions to fend off the various threats posed by the global financial turmoil of 2007/08, the euro area sovereign debt market crisis, and the subsequent period of anaemic growth and deflationary pressures. It also addresses some of the criticisms the ECB has faced regarding its policy initiatives. It identifies the ultimate motivation behind the ECB's cautious attitude in the early phases of the financial crisis, and its peculiar definition of price stability and attention for credit creation, as well as addressing the criticism that central banks were fundamentally unprepared to head off a major financial cataclysm as they were wedded to a deficient economic paradigm which made them blind to financial risks. It also shows that the ECB's unconventional low-interest policies have not compromised the position of financial intermediaries in the way commentators initially predicted they would. By condensing the facts and lessons of the first 20 years of the ECB, this volume will acquaint the reader with the structures and decision-making processes behind the complex, often controversial, crisis measures that were taken during some of the toughest economic challenges in the history of modern Europe, and provide them with fresh ex-post analysis on their effect on the real economy and inflation.