The global financial crisis is often defined by the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008. This book, first published as an eBook three months prior to the collapse, recognises that a global crisis was already well underway. It highlights how losses in the US subprime market had spread beyond the confines of the US mortgage sector and the borders of the United States, how risk spreads had ballooned and liquidity in some markets had dried up forcing large financial institutions to report significant losses. Bank runs were no longer the stuff of history. The financial crisis that emerged and the policy responses have been unprecedented in scale. They have also challenged economists to explain where the global crisis came from, where it was heading, and what could be done. This book brings together the views and predictions of leading economists published on VoxEU.org months before the developments of late 2008 in a volume that holds its own against the events that followed.

The First Global Financial Crisis of the 21st Century - Part I: August 2007-May 2008

Business & Money

Economics

Centre for Economic Policy Research

In 1989 the European Council of Ministers approved a Regulation establishing a new system of merger control for the European Community. This is the first independent review of the EC Merger Regulation and has wide implications for other issues such as regulatory capture and transparency. It uses the latest research methodology from economics to analyse the decisions taken by the Commission and also reports a detailed survey of firms which have submitted merger proposals and the law firms that have advised them. The full text of the Regulation is reprinted along with summary statistics for all of the cases investigated up to the end of March 1993. Economists, lawyers, and practitioners in the business and policy communities concerned with regulation and merger policy will need this book."I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the political economy of merger control in the EC and in the US. The authors show clear mastery of complex legal issues that underpin merger control, and offer an up-to-date and highly readable guide through the policy thicket." -Janusz Ordover, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, US Department of Justice

Merger in Daylight: The Economics and Politics of European Merger Control

Seabright, Paul

Nuttall, Robin

Neven, Damien

Making Sense of Subsidiarity goes right to the heart of many of the tensions now facing the EU. The principle articulates a presumption that the powers of EU institutions should be limited to those that cannot be adequately performed by its member states. This Report argues that until detailed arguments for and against centralization are made, the principle remains an incomplete guide to decisions as to where power should reside. Sections cover: labour mobility and its implications for the centralization of income tax and social security; economic integration and the Social Chapter; fiscal policy, macroeconomic stabilization and the Maastricht rules; environmental policy; merger policy; and European agriculture.

Making Sense of Subsidiarity: How Much Centralization for Europe? (Monitoring European Integration, Vol 4)

Begg, David

This is the first major study of how developments in Eastern Europe would affect the economies of Western Europe and the process of economic integration among them. The first section focuses on the medium- and long-term implications of the current transformation of Eastern Europe for European production and trade. It also assesses the implications of change in Eastern Europe for EC trade and industrial policies and the likely magnitude of East European trade with the West, given the current state of the capital stock and the potential for industrial restructuring. The Report analyses Eastern exports of energy and agricultural goods, the future of the CAP, and competition between Eastern and Southern Europe. The second section of the Report assesses the medium-term macroeconomic impact of the transformation of the East European economies, focusing on issues such as the consequences of German reunification, East European spending on consumption versus investment, and the likely impact on the EMS of the flows of new investment and capital goods from the West into Eastern Europe. Here the Report assesses the implications of reform in the East for interest rates, pressures for DM realignment, and the case for accelerating EMU in response to the 'Eastern Europe shock'.

The Impact of Eastern Europe

The crisis in the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the EMS in 1992 and subsequent developments threw the progress of monetary integration in Europe into confusion. Prior to the crisis there had been substantial convergence of exchange rate regimes and policy stances across Europe. Central banks from Finland to Portugal adopted in essence the same policy: pegging their exchange rate to the ERM group of countries or, more specifically, the Deutsche mark. The papers in this volume were originally presented at a conference in Helsinki as the initial turmoil broke out. Now revised in many cases to reflect the events of 1992 and 1993, they contribute to our understanding of the motivations behind the drive to peg currencies in the Nordic countries to the Deutsche mark, and of the problems these countries encountered in that process. An improved understanding of these motivations and problems is vital in assessing the prospects for monetary policy and exchange rate regimes for the remainder of the decade.

Exchange Rate Policies in the Nordic Countries

Akerholm, Johnny

Powerful political and economic forces are driving a rapid integration of post-communist Europe, yet short-term political considerations have produced piecemeal trade arrangements instead of a coherent structure. Individual agreements have been signed linking the European Union to several Central and East European countries (CEECs), EFTA to several CEECs, a few CEECs to each other and EU to EFTA. Although the agreements have many similar features, most have been negotiated separately; their coverage differs significantly; and there are no links among them. Is this maze of bilateral deals the best configuration for promoting pan-European growth and stability? How will these agreements and their interactions influence growth, trade, investment, migration and income disparities in Europe? Richard Baldwin has marshalled the best available empirical evidence and analytic techniques to establish a framework for organizing our thinking on why the structure and pattern of trade arrangements matters. On this basis, he assesses the alternative paths towards European economic and political integration. The economic analysis is objective, but political economy on this scale is likely to lead to strong policy conclusions, as indeed it does here. Aspects of his own proposal will be controversial, but it offers a deeply considered basis for further discussion and ultimately for action. All will benefit from Baldwin's insights and the challenge he puts forward for a more positive and consistent approach to the architecture of Europe.

Towards an Integrated Europe

Baldwin, Richard E.

The European Union faces difficult challenges: to go on with further enlargement; to reconcile radically different views on the appropriate scope and depth of integration; and to close the democratic deficit and revive public support for the Union. Written by a distinguished team of academics from six countries to inform public opinion before the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference, CEPR's sixth Monitoring European Integration Report argues for significant economic, political and legal reforms of the Union to meet these challenges. Flexible Integration is a model of reform designed to overcome the current stalemate between federalists and anti-federalists. It introduces more flexibility to accommodate the heterogeneous interests in Europe without risking the gains achieved through past integration. Flexible integration combines firm commitment by all members to a common supranational common base - including a well-defined set of competences related to the Single Market - with optional integration in other areas through open partnerships. Within these ramifications, the report discusses a number of specific reforms, including: how to introduce a hierarchy of European Law, making the Union's legal structure more flexible and transparent; how to improve enforcement of the Single Market, realising the vision underlying the four freedoms; how to achieve macroeconomic coordination without the tarnished exchange rate mechanism, while accommodating the different views on the single currency; and how to make political decision-making more efficient and legitimate, representing and balancing different European interests and making decision-makers more directly accountable to the citizens of Europe.

Flexible Integration: Towards a More Effective and Democratic Europe (Monitoring European Integration, No 6)

Rosenthal, Howard

Persson, Torsten

Tabellini, Guido

Roland, Gérard

Dewatripont, Mathias

Giavazzi, Francesco

Harden, Ian

Hagen, Jurgen Von

Sapir, Andre

As debate continues over regionalism versus multilateralism, pro-regional integration policymakers confront many questions. Which countries should they integrate with? What form of integration is best? And under what conditions will integration further the national interest?This book helps to answer such questions and, thus, assist countries in making the best of preferential trade agreements. It provides evidence of actual and possible effects of recent trade agreements--NAFTA, AFTA, and EU agreements with Tunisia and Morocco. It also discusses the potential impact of an Egypt-EU agreement, at both the national and sectoral levels, and offers policy options for Egypt.Ahmed Galal is director of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies and coauthor of Bureaucrats in Business: The Economics and Politics of Government Ownership (Oxford, 1996). Bernard Hoekman, a CEPR research fellow, is a senior economist in the International Economics Department of the World Bank. A former member of the GATT Secretariat, he is the coauthor of The Political Economy of the World Trading System: From GATT to WTO (Oxford, 1995).Copublished by CEPR and The Egyptian Center for Economic Studies

Regional Partners in Global Markets: Limits and Possibilities of the Euro-Med Agreements

Marketing & Sales

This book presents an assessment of the fiscal policy challenges facing the Central and East European (CEE) countries as they attempt to negotiate their entry in the European Union. The first part centers around an evaluation of the fiscal situation in these countries: its dynamic development, comparisons between these countries, and the wider European context. The second part investigates the relationship between fiscal policy and the overall success of economy-wide restructuring in terms of social expenditures and the role of fiscal policy in macroeconomic stabilization, including sterilization policies. This is a succinct yet comprehensive account of the fiscal situation in CEE, of interest to anyone concerned with the economics and politics of the region.

Fiscal Policy in Transition: Forum Report of the Economic Policy Initiative No. 3

Coricelli, Fabrizio

Much has been written about rigidities in shaping the poor performance of European labor markets. As EMU approaches, many wonder what interactions might be expected between labor market institutions and the changing character of EU economies. Absolute and relative efficiency are likely to become more important within EMU since increased specialization and more intense competition could enhance opportunities for labor reallocation, and free mobility of capital will more harshly penalize relatively inefficient countries and regions. On the other side of the same coin, increased turbulence of labor demand may generate calls for protection, especially as monetary and fiscal policies can hardly be used to offset asymmetric shocks. This book offers constructive comments and policy recommendations on the design and implementation of social policies in the EU. The ongoing debate surrounding the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty has highlighted many of the issues addressed here: Can social policies continue to be implemented at the national level? Or is social dumping inevitable in the absence of a common social policy? If provisions are needed, should they take the form of minimal agreements, or should there be exceptions for particular countries? What consideration should future candidates from Central and Eastern Europe receive when designing current social policy directives? Is social dumping a healthy matter to force countries to lighten their excessive labor market regulations? The authors are Charles Bean, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE; Samuel Bentolila, CEMFI, Madrid; Giuseppe Bertola, European University Institute, Firenze; and Juan J Dolado, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid.

Social Europe: One for All?

Bertola, Giuseppe

Bean, Charles

Bentolila, Samuel

Dolado, Juan J.

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