A Descriptive Assessment of the Effects of Lehman Brothers’ Shock on the External Equilibrium in Some Euro Area Countries

The purpose of this article is the assessment of the way in which the propagation of the Lehman-Brothers shock has been reflected on the developments in the balance of payments of some countries in the euro area and the highlighting of the asymmetries, which have emerged due to the generated effects. The motivation is represented by the importance of the asymmetries manifestation within a monetary area, by the effects they have on the implementation of the common policies, and by their causes: are these asymmetries generated by asymmetric macroeconomic shocks or by the accumulation in time of some vulnerable elements in the economy? The paper is a capitalization of the research project “External equilibrium and asymmetric shocks” elaborated in 2012, at “Victor Slavescu” Centre for Financial and Monetary Research of “Costin C. Kiritescu” Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy.