Despite its efforts and obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU has not succeeded in even making a dent in the rapidly rising trend of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. If anything, the trend has accelerated in recent years. In his Thünen Lecture given to the Verein für Socialpolitik in...

In Casino Capitalism Hans-Werner Sinn examines the causes of the banking crisis, points out the flaws in the economic rescue packages, and presents a master plan for the reform of financial markets. Sinn argues that the crisis came about because limited liability induced both Wall Street and...

Global economic conditions have deteriorated considerably since summer 2011. Europe in particular has been obliged to revise its growth expectations sharply downwards. The debt crisis and its consequences have stifled demand worldwide, even impacting regions that have long been developing...

There are differing views on the causes of, and cures for, this crisis. At one end of the spectrum, some ultimately see it as a public debt crisis and advocate the strengthening of political constraints on government borrowing. Others primarily regard it as a confidence crisis, which should be...

This chapter summarises recent developments in Hungary and aims to shed some light on why Hungary failed to live up to the expectations of the early 1990s. Section 5.2 analyses Hungary’s growth performance since 1990, and is followed by an analysis of its labour markets in Section 5.3. Section...

Chapter 2: The European Balance-of-Payments Problem: Introduce ‘euro-standard’ bills / Settle Target balances. Chapter 3: Banking Regulation: Promote European financial integration / Give national central banks a supervisory role / Redesign the euro area’s financial architecture. Chapter...

Section 3.2 of this chapter overviews the crisis and its regulatory failures. Section 3.3 deals with ongoing regulatory reform, while Section 3.4 analyses competition policy and its interaction with regulation. In Sections 3.5 and 3.6 we look at the reform of the European Union’s financial...