The Eurozone's reaction to the economic crisis beginning in late 2008 involved both efforts to mitigate the arbitrarily destructive effects of markets and vigorous pursuit of policies aimed at austerity and deflation. To explain this paradoxical outcome, this paper builds on Karl Polanyi's...

We provide a comprehensive account of the dynamics of eurozone countries from 2000 to 2012. We analyze private leverage, fiscal policy, labor costs and interest rates and we propose a strategy to separate the impact of credit cycles, excessive government spending, and sudden stops. We then ask...

This paper reviews the specifics of the Federal Reserve's authority to act as lender of last resort and its actions during the crisis, and subsequently discusses the lessons drawn by the author from their experience.Full publication: "http://ssrn.com/abstract=2504682" target="_blank" Re-Thinking...

During the 2007-10 financial crisis, central banks accumulated a vast amount of experience in acting as lenders of last resort. This paper reviews the various ways that central banks provided emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) during the crisis, and discusses issues for the design of ELA...

Ghana is in the midst of a severe but not unprecedented macroeconomic crisis. This paper helps to evaluate the government’s policy options by (1) explaining the crisis’ causes, and (2) comparing it to previous macroeconomic crises and the policies that corrected them. Two large shocks are to...

This paper develops a model to interpret the 2012 eurozone crisis and the ECB's policy response. In the model, bank lending is distorted by debt overhang, banks hold sovereign bonds, and the government guarantees the bailout of bank creditors. A self-fulfilling pessimistic view of the economy...

During times of economic crises, the public policy response is to abandon basic economic thinking and engage in ‘emergency economic’ policies. We explore how the current financial crisis was in part caused by previous emergency economic measures. We then investigate the theoretical...

Note 1 and Note 2 in this three-part series described how the Federal Reserve (or Fed) implements monetary policy in normal times, with an ample quantity of reserves in the banking system. In this third and final Note in our series, we take a detour in light of current circumstances and describe...