What is the link between the financial cycle - financial booms, followed by busts - and the real economy? What is the direction of this link and how salient is this connection? This unique book examines these fundamental questions and offers a paramount contribution to the debate surrounding the...

In the long aftermath of the acute global financial crisis of 2008/09, the need to get economies back on track and to handle high levels of public and private debt has created conflicting objectives. Challenges yet to be mastered are the need to avoid counterproductive measures of adjustment and...

pt. 1. The stability merits of the euro -- pt. 2. A case for rapid euro adoption? -- pt. 3. The euro area- a shelter? Euro assets- a safe haven? -- pt. 4. Lessons- from euro area divergences, and from the crisis -- pt. 5. Post-crisis business models of banks in CEE

Contents: Part I A modern take on structural reforms -- 1. Past and future reform challenges for CESEE and Europe at large / Ewald Nowotny, Doris Ritzberger-Grünwald and Helene Schuberth -- 2. Revisiting transition reform / Sergei Guriev -- 3. Europe's moments of truth - wicked crises, good and...