...the euro-zone crisis – causes, the crisis and reformation policies (with special reference to greece) the euro-zone ‘The Eurozone’ is the nickname commonly used to describe the member states that use the EU’s single currency, the Euro. The idea of creating a single currency for the European Community was first mentioned in the 1970 Werner report, which led to the establishing of the European Monetary System (EMS), the forerunner of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The Maastricht Treaty (1992) made EMU a part of EU law and set out a plan to introduce the single currency (the Euro) by 1999. The Maastricht Treaty also established certain budgetary and monetary rules for countries wishing to join the EMU (known as the convergence criteria). In 1998, 11 member states (Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria and Finland) undertook the final stage of EMU when they adopted a single exchange rate, which was set by the European Central Bank (Britain, Sweden and Denmark negotiated an opt-out from this final states of EMU). The new Euro notes and coins were launched on 1 January 2002. There are currently 16 EU states in the Eurozone. Greece joined the initial 11 members in 2001, Slovenia joined in 2007, Cyprus and Malta in 2008, and Slovakia joined in 2009. Estonia is due to join the Eurozone in 2011. All future members of the EU must adopt the Euro when they fulfil the convergence criteria. Economic and Monetary Union...
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...E SSAY COLLECT ION Crisis in the Eurozone Transatlantic Perspectives ESSAY COLLECTION Crisis in the Eurozone Transatlantic Perspectives This publication is a part of CFR’s International Institutions and Global Governance (IIGG) program and has been made possible by the generous support of the Robina Foundation. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. Founded in 1921, CFR carries out its mission by maintaining a diverse membership, with special programs to promote interest and develop expertise in the next generation of foreign policy leaders; convening meetings at its headquarters in New York and in Washington, DC, and other cities where senior government officials, members of Congress, global leaders, and prominent thinkers come together with CFR members to discuss and debate major international issues; supporting a Studies Program that fosters independent research, enabling CFR scholars to produce articles, reports, and books and hold roundtables that analyze foreign policy issues and make concrete policy recommendations; publishing Foreign Affairs, the preeminent journal...
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...Financial Crisis in the European Union: The Cases of Greece and Ireland Sara F. Taylor Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science Scott G. Nelson, Chair Karen M. Hult Deborah J. Milly September 7, 2011 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: EUROPEAN UNION, EUROZONE, GREECE FINANCIAL CRISIS, IRELAND BANKING CRISIS, EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK Copyright 2011 Sara F. Taylor Financial Crisis in the European Union: The Cases of Greece and Ireland Sara Frances Taylor ABSTRACT The 2008 eurozone financial crisis has only worsened as of summer 2011 raising questions about the economic future of the eurozone and sending shock waves through economies around the world. Greece was the first state to receive a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, surprisingly followed only six months later by Ireland. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the challenges posed to smaller, weaker economies within the eurozone, specifically Greece and Ireland, since the recent eurozone financial crisis. This study is based on the experiences of both Greece and Ireland as very different members of the single currency. How and why did these states meet the criteria for euro convergence? To what extent was there support for the euro in both countries in the past? To what extent is there support today after the near collapse...
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...and Answers Summary The European Union (EU) is a political and economic partnership that represents a unique form of cooperation among sovereign countries. The Union is the latest stage in a process of integration begun after World War II, initially by six Western European countries, to foster interdependence and make another war in Europe unthinkable. Today, the EU is composed of 27 member states, including most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and has helped to promote peace, stability, and economic prosperity throughout the European continent. The EU has been built through a series of binding treaties, and over the years, EU member states have sought to harmonize laws and adopt common policies on an increasing number of economic, social, and political issues. EU member states share a customs union, a single market in which goods, people, and capital move freely, a common trade policy, and a common agricultural policy. Seventeen EU member states use a common currency (the euro). In addition, the EU has been developing a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), which includes a Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), and pursuing cooperation in the area of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) to forge common internal security measures. EU member states work together through common institutions to set policy and to promote their collective interests. Key EU institutions include the European Council, composed of EU Heads of State or Government, which acts as the...
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...Introduction The Greek debt crisis in 2009 occurred as a result of an understated financial deficit and extreme spending. The stagnation of the Greek economy and the demotion in their debt rating did not aid their financial situation. Greece was then faced with the possibility of sovereign debt default. The failure of Greece to pay their debts required bailouts from the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While the loan bailouts have eased short term liquidity problems, Greece still remained in financial turmoil which may even deteriorate. This research paper aims to explore the history behind the Greek debt crisis, the implications it has globally and on South Africa as well as the lessons that can be learnt from the crisis. Origins of the Greek debt crisis 2.1 Historical development: 2001-2008/09 In 2001 Greece became the twelfth member to join the Euro zone and was permitted to use the Euro (€) as its currency. Greece joined the Euro zone because of the benefits associated with being part of the Euro area. These benefits were essential to the economy of Greece who had a record of unpredictable inflation (Gibson, Hall & Tavlas, 2012). In addition, after Greece changed to the Euro they had the freedom to borrow money from foreign capital markets. During 2003-2007 government records showed Greece to be growing at 4% a year which gave investors’ confidence and made Greek bonds a popular investment...
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...to the financial crisis 2 2. Conditions leading up to the Irish and Icelandic economic crisis 3 2.1 The business cycle 3 2.2 The era of the Irish ‘Celtic Tiger’ 4 2.3 The ‘Financial Vikings’ of Iceland 5 3. Financial crisis response 6 3.1 Government response to the financial crisis 6 3.2 The default decision 10 4. Economic outlook and long-term repercussions 14 5. Conclusion 18 1. Introduction to the financial crisis The Great Recession began in 2007 as the United States housing market fell into a sharp decline. Many economists consider the resulting financial crisis to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. While the crisis can be traced back to a variety of economic origins, the volatility that existed in the world economy from the 1990’s undoubtedly played a large role (Roubini, 2010). The Asian Crisis that arose after the fall of car manufacturer Kia in 1997 and the burst of the Dotcom Bubble in the early 2000’s resulted in many wealthy countries decreasing interest rates to all-time lows to encourage growth in their economies (Roubini, 2010). These low interest rates led consumers, particularly those in the US, to borrow more money than they could afford to repay (Roubini, 2010). During the financial crisis, credit defaults brought the solvency of a number of major international banks into question, and several governments ultimately had to bail out their banking systems (Rose & Spiegel, 2009). Problems that arose primarily...
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...The Eurozone crisis (often referred to as the Euro crisis) is an ongoing crisis that has been affecting the countries of the Eurozone since late 2009. It is a combined sovereign debt crisis, a banking crisis and a growth and competitiveness crisis.[8] The crisis made it difficult or impossible for some countries in the euro area to repay or re-finance their government debt without the assistance of third parties. Moreover, banks in the Eurozone are undercapitalized and have faced liquidity problems. Additionally, economic growth is slow in the whole of the Eurozone and is unequally distributed across the member states.[8] In 1992, members of the European Union signed the Maastricht Treaty, under which they pledged to limit their deficit spending and debt levels. However, in the early 2000s, a number of EU member states were failing to stay within the confines of the Maastricht criteria and turned to securitising future government revenues to reduce their debts and/or deficits. Sovereigns sold rights to receive future cash flows, allowing governments to raise funds without violating debt and deficit targets, but sidestepping best practice and ignoring internationally agreed standards.[9] This allowed the sovereigns to mask (or "Enronize") their deficit and debt levels through a combination of techniques, including inconsistent accounting, off-balance-sheet transactions as well as the use of complex currency and credit derivatives structures.[9] From late 2009, fears of...
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...Research (CEPR) The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) is a network of almost 900 research economists based mostly in European universities. The Centre’s goal is twofold: to promote world-class research, and to get the policy-relevant results into the hands of key decision-makers. CEPR’s guiding principle is ‘Research excellence with policy relevance’. A registered charity since it was founded in 1983, CEPR is independent of all public and private interest groups. It takes no institutional stand on economic policy matters and its core funding comes from its Institutional Members and sales of publications. Because it draws on such a large network of researchers, its output reflects a broad spectrum of individual viewpoints as well as perspectives drawn from civil society. CEPR research may include views on policy, but the Executive Committee of the Centre does not give prior review to its publications. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and not those of CEPR. Chair of the Board President Director Research Director Guillermo de la Dehesa Richard Portes Richard Baldwin Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke Contents Introduction Richard Baldwin and Coen Teulings 1 Opening the debate 1 Reflections on the ‘New Secular Stagnation...
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...The Political Economy of the Greek Debt Crisis: A Tale of Two Bailouts Silvia Ardagna and Francesco Caselli First draft: February 2012; Final version: January 2014 Abstract We review the events that led to the May 2010 and July 2011 bailout agreements. We interpret the bailouts as outcomes of political-economy equilibria. We argue that these equilibria were likely not on the Pareto frontier, and sketch political-economy arguments for why collective policy making in the Euro area may lead to suboptimal outcomes. Most modern sovereign debt crises have been managed in Washington, DC, through the combined e¤orts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US government. A distinctive feature of the crisis that has engulfed European sovereign-debt markets since the fall of 2009 has been that the IMF has played only a supporting (albeit important) role, while the management of the crisis has been driven by European institutions: the council of …nance ministers (ECOFIN), the European Council (EC, made up by all the heads of government of the European Union) and the European Central Bank (ECB). To the extent that the IMF is largely a technocratic institution (though of course not entirely immune from political in‡ uence) while ECOFIN and the EC are made up of politicians, one may expect the management of the crisis by the EC to be more a¤ected by electoral concerns. Furthermore, since there are 27 members to the EC, representing countries with potentially di¤erent interests, one...
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...Greek CDS drama holds lessons for investors It’s over. The long-running drama over Greek credit default swaps finally came to end with a $2.5bn pay-out for those who had bought protection against default by Athens. Yet, while market disorder was avoided, there remain concerns that CDS are flawed. Market participants insist lessons need to be learned from the Greek debt restructuring deal and bond exchange, or these insurance-like instruments, untested in a sovereign restructuring before Greece and which are used as a protection against losses on bonds, could lose their appeal. An auction held by 14 banks set a market-wide payout of $2.5bn, or 78.5 per cent of the $3.2bn of net outstanding CDS as of March 9, when a so-called “credit event” was declared by the International Swaps & Derivatives Association, the industry body that rules on pay-outs. The payout was considered fair value by many strategists and investors. But these same strategists and investors said that this was more down to luck than design as the Greek debt exchange, under which private sector holdings of Greek debt were written down by about €100bn, failed to consider the potential negative fallout for CDS. Michael Hampden-Turner, credit strategist at Citi, says: “I would like to see the market look very closely at how CDS works in the event of future sovereign restructurings. We had a lucky break with Greece in that the process went smoothly, but it might not do so the next time round.” Portugal could...
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...FDI Venture | Trans-Continental Trucking Company in Poland | | Country/Service Since its transition to a market economy after becoming liberalized in 1989, Poland has quickly become a thriving high middle income country that has a stable democracy and good relationships with European States ("Polish Information and Investment Agency"). Poland possesses the public institutions, infrastructure, high human development levels and proximity to world markets, making it an attractive country to do business in ("Polish Information and Investment Agency"). Based on economic factors, compensation rates, and location, it is proposed to enter into Poland’s transportation services market by starting a wholly owned trucking company transporting oversized cargo, such as windmill parts and fuel. Preliminary research showed Poland as a major avenue for transporting goods across Europe, proving a trucking company would be a lucrative investment. Poland has seen a significant increase in foreign direct investment projects, up 40%, the most across Europe ("Polish Information and Investment Agency"). Currently, Poland is listed as the sixth most attractive country to invest in, confirming the country’s strong position in the international invest scene ("Helping U.S. Companies to Export"). The country’s sustainable development has much to do with its solid economic foundations. Poland has experienced an unflagging 5% annual economic growth, classifying it a credible and important business...
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...ISSUES FOR IIM INTERVIEW PROCESS © EssaysforIIM.com 2014-15 Issues for IIM PI Process http://www.essaysforIIM.com Contents US‐CHINA ENVIRONMENT DEAL 8 OIL PRICE 9 PAYMENT BANKS 11 SHADOW BANKING 13 NBFCs 14 NEW DEFINITION OF FDI 16 REFORMS IN POWER DISTRIBUTION 16 SECURITIES LAWS (AMENDMENT) BILL 2014 18 JUVENILE JUSTICE BILL, 2014 18 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON 19 INEQUALITY 20 SOCIO‐ECONOMIC PROFILE OF STATES AND INTER‐STATE COMPARISONS 21 ASER 2013: Main Findings 23 SKILL DEVELOPMENT 24 HOW INDIA NEEDS TO FACE CLIMATE CHANGE 24 AGENDA FOR ECONOMIC REFORMS 28 INFRASTRUCTURE 30 WHY LONG‐RUN MATTERS 30 FIVE PRONGED STRATEGY TO CONTROL INFLATION 31 URJIT PATEL COMMITTEE 32 Some Major Issues in India's Merchandise Trade Sector 32 MAKE IN INDIA OPPORTUNITY 34 Make for India or Make in India – The debate begins! 37 VULNERABILITY COMPARISON OF INDIAN ECONOMY 38 PM JAN DHAN YOJANA 39 COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM 40 ZERO DEFECT, ZERO EFFECT 41 DIGITAL INDIA 42 TWO FACTOR IDENTIFICATION ISSUE 43 MINSK AGREEMENT 44 WILFUL DEFAULT 44 © EssaysforIIM.com 2014‐15 Page 1 Issues for IIM PI Process http://www.essaysforIIM.com ‘MAKE IN INDIA’ ...
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...1: HOW ECONOMISTS THINK * What are preferences? Preferences refer to all of the objectives an individual wants to achieve that might motivate a choice among a set of alternatives. * What does it mean for an individual’s preferences to be rational? Please explain the concepts of costs and benefits and the reasoning process used by a rational individual. A rational individual will try to make the best possible use of his/her scarce resources, usually choosing an activity that has the highest utility. Rational preferences possess 2 properties, which are completeness and transitivity. Completeness means that choices can be ranked in an order of preference. For instance, an individual will have a preference when faced with two choices. Transitivity means actions can be compared with other actions. As an example, if action a is preferred to b, and action b is preferred to c, then a is preferred to c. A benefit is the maximum unit of currency amount you would be willing to pay to do x, while the cost is the value of all the resources you must give up in order to do x. The cost-benefit approach to decisions states that an individual should do an activity x if the benefit exceeds the cost. Relating to cost, in the process of coming up with a decision, a rational individual will take into account opportunity costs and ignore sunk costs. * New theories argue that people are not always rational. On what grounds? What are the implications for Policy making? The arguments...
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...CORPORATE FINANCE T H IRD E DIT ION JONATHAN BERK STANFORD UNIVERSITY PETER D E MARZO STANFORD UNIVERSITY Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo To Rebecca, Natasha, and Hannah, for the love and for being there —J. B. To Kaui, Pono, Koa, and Kai, for all the love and laughter —P. D. Editor in Chief: Donna Battista Acquisitions Editor: Katie Rowland Executive Development Editor: Rebecca Ferris-Caruso Editorial Project Manager: Emily Biberger Managing Editor: Jeff Holcomb Senior Production Project Manager: Nancy Freihofer Senior Manufacturing Buyer: Carol Melville Cover Designer: Jonathan Boylan Cover Photo: Nikreates/Alamy Media Director: Susan Schoenberg Content Lead, MyFinanceLab: Miguel Leonarte Executive Media Producer: Melissa Honig Project Management and Text Design: Gillian Hall, The Aardvark Group Composition and Artwork: Laserwords Printer/Binder: R.R. Donnelley/Jefferson City Cover Printer: Lehigh Phoenix Text Font: Adobe Garamond Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate page within text and on this copyright page. Credits: Cover: Sculpture in photo: Detail of Flamingo (1973), Alexander Calder. Installed in Federal Plaza, Chicago. Sheet metal and paint, 1615.4 x 1828.8 x 731...
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...CORPORATE FINANCE T H IRD E DIT ION JONATHAN BERK STANFORD UNIVERSITY PETER D E MARZO STANFORD UNIVERSITY Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo To Rebecca, Natasha, and Hannah, for the love and for being there —J. B. To Kaui, Pono, Koa, and Kai, for all the love and laughter —P. D. Editor in Chief: Donna Battista Acquisitions Editor: Katie Rowland Executive Development Editor: Rebecca Ferris-Caruso Editorial Project Manager: Emily Biberger Managing Editor: Jeff Holcomb Senior Production Project Manager: Nancy Freihofer Senior Manufacturing Buyer: Carol Melville Cover Designer: Jonathan Boylan Cover Photo: Nikreates/Alamy Media Director: Susan Schoenberg Content Lead, MyFinanceLab: Miguel Leonarte Executive Media Producer: Melissa Honig Project Management and Text Design: Gillian Hall, The Aardvark Group Composition and Artwork: Laserwords Printer/Binder: R.R. Donnelley/Jefferson City Cover Printer: Lehigh Phoenix Text Font: Adobe Garamond Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate page within text and on this copyright page. Credits: Cover: Sculpture in photo: Detail of Flamingo (1973), Alexander Calder. Installed in Federal Plaza, Chicago. Sheet metal and paint, 1615.4 x 1828.8 x 731...
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