ABSTRACT

The European Sovereign Debt Crisis: Breaking the Vicious Circle between Sovereigns and Banks explains why the euro area’s progress towards reining in the risks arising from the well-documented bi-directional financial contagion transmission mechanism that links sovereigns to commercial banks has been more prominent compared to the channel of contagion moving from banks to sovereigns.

Providing an analysis of the legal and regulatory measures that Europe and the euro area have taken to mitigate the exposure of sovereigns to financial crises generated by commercial banks, this book draws attention to areas where improvements to the arsenal of tools hitherto introduced are either desirable or necessary. Chapters further explain – with recourse to economic and legal arguments – why the channel of contagion moving from sovereigns to commercial banks has proven harder to close, and explores ways in which progress could be made in the direction of closing it so as to avert the risk of future banking sector crises.

This work provides essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in sovereign debt crises and the euro-area banking system.

chapter |7 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|34 pages

The sovereign–banks nexus

An economic analysis

chapter 3|65 pages

An economic analysis of policy options

chapter 4|34 pages

Closing the first channel of contagion from banks to sovereigns

Hitherto European actions and their critique

chapter 5|51 pages

Closing the second channel of contagion from sovereigns to banks

Legal assessment of policy options

chapter |4 pages

Concluding remarks