The so-called Troika, consisting of the EU-Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was supposed to support the member states of the euro area which had been hit hard by a sovereign debt crisis. For that purpose, economic adjustment programs were...

The global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting deterioration in many countries’ public finances have increased the risk of sovereign debt crises. Although crisis prevention remains paramount, these developments have made it imperative to re-examine the adequacy of the...

World Pensions Council cofounders Vincent Bazi and M. Nicolas J. Firzli analyse the rise of natural gas as a new asset class for pension and sovereign fund stakeholders in light of the geo-institutional dynamics underpinning asset allocation and investment decisions in an era of macroeconomic...

At the 25th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, this paper reviews the merits of introducing a safe sovereign asset for the eurozone. The triple euro area crisis showed the costly consequences of ignoring the "safety trilemma". Keeping a national safe sovereign asset (the German bund) as the...

This paper considers the benefits to Greece, the Euro zone and the rest of the world arising from policies that prevent a Greek default and exit from the Euro, compares these benefits with the costs of the preventive policies and concludes that the benefits exceed the costs. The rational case...

The Global Financial Crisis has shown that the international financial system is vulnerable to breakdown. The financial trilemma demonstrates that financial stability, international banking and national financial supervision cannot be combined. National supervisors force international banks to...

The development of the European Monetary Union is related to Milton Friedman's critique of the Bretton Woods System that started a vigorous debate about “fixed versus flexible exchange rates.” This paper contrasts briefly the arguments pro and con flexible exchange rates at this time. After...

On January 1, 2013, it became mandatory that every new sovereign bond issued by a member of the European Monetary Union include a new contract clause called a Collective Action Clause or CAC. This, we believe, constituted the biggest one-time change to the terms of sovereign debt contracts in...

At the 25th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, this paper reviews the merits of introducing a safe sovereign asset for the eurozone. The triple euro area crisis showed the costly consequences of ignoring the ‘safety trilemma’. Keeping a national safe sovereign asset (the German bund) as...

This paper analyzes the causes of the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone and examines the policy alternatives confronting euro area governments. It suggests that pooling fiscal risks, creating an EU Treasury and issuing jointly-backed euro bonds is an optimal solution and the inevitable...