On September 3-4, 2009 SUERF and Utrecht University School of Economicsorganized the Colloquium "The Quest for Stability" in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The papers included in this SUERF Study are based on contributions to the Colloquium.

Banks are generally considered by most people to be utilities that allow for the transmission of value on a daily basis in modern society, but they also seem to create devastating events like credit crises by the manufacture of credit. How this power originated in human society is of interest....

The enormity and pervasiveness of the global economic crisis that began in 2008 makes it relevant to analyze the circumstances that can explain this catastrophe. This will also provide clues to the appropriate remedial measures needed to prevent future occurrences of similar developments.The...

The author starts from the assumption that Croatia will access the European Union. Following this assumption, he analyzes the possible scenarios of Croatian monetary strategy based on the achievements of the country's monetary policy, on the degree of acceptance of the convergence criteria and...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, G7 central banks have launched asset purchase programs in anticipation of an increase in government bond offerings to finance ballooning fiscal deficits. As the volume of government bonds owned by private investors is not expected to rise during the current...

IMF praised the Turkish financial system for escaping the 2008 global financial crisis with a minor dent in its economy, the success was attributable to significant capital buffers built up in the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis, more effective fiscal and monetary management, strengthened...

Basel II and III standards are a regulatory consequence following two major crises in systemic nature, the homegrown Asian crisis of 1997-98 and the global financial crisis of 2007-08. Basel I, despite high expectations and claims by the Basel Committee, failed to prevent the following financial...

Before the invention of money (coin, paper, or digital) there was barter trading, a form of exchange without the use of a monetary medium. The evolution of money has kept pace with the evolution of humans. Money was not invented solely for transaction purposes; it was created to quantify wealth...

While the many commonalities shared by Bitcoin and gold raise a question of whether Bitcoin is a safe-haven like gold, relevant empirical evidence to date is mixed. Unlike existing empirical studies, we derive a simple estimable model of Bitcoin price dynamics from the quantity equation, which...