Lessons of the European crisis for regional monetary and financial integration in East Asia

The debt crisis in several member states of the euro area has raised doubts on the viability of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the future of the euro. While the launch of the euro in 1999 stirred a lot of interests in regional monetary integration and even monetary unification in various parts of the world, including East Asia, the current crisis has had the opposite effect, even raising expectations of a break-up of the euro area. Indeed, the crisis has highlighted the problems and tensions that will inevitably arise within a monetary union when imbalances build up and become unsustainable. This article discusses the causes of the current European crisis and the challenges that EMU countries face in solving it. Based on this analysis, it derives five lessons for regional financial and monetary cooperation and integration in East Asia.     

Policy Lessons from the Eurozone Crisis

The current European crisis has shed light on several weaknesses and the institutional incompleteness characterizing the euro area. The manifestation of Europe's fragility was preceded by a large build-up of debt in the private sector, associated with national current account divergences and the deterioration of competitiveness particularly of the euro periphery countries. With the economic situation deteriorating, private sector debt became less credible, contaminating banks’ balance sheets and placing a heavy burden on governments. A sovereign-bank vicious circle emerged: on the one hand, with banking risk translating into higher sovereign risk because of the governments’ guarantor role and, on the other hand, with the deterioration of government's creditworthiness affecting the banking systems through banks’ sovereign bond holdings. In principle, this negative feedback can be stopped by breaking one of the channels of transmission. A banking union at the European level is proposed as one solution.     

The democratic legitimation of European institutions

Italy is firmly in the grip of an austerity programme mandated by the European Union institutions, and executed by an unelected technocrat. This state of affairs is at once the result of the acute and unexpected crisis of the financial and economic integration of the eurozone, and an expression of the failures of the Italian political class. Although the euro crisis has been mishandled by European elites, Italy's long-term economic decline, and the inability of Italian party politicians to generate a sustainable coalition to address Italy's economic problems, hinders an exit from the crisis.     

欧洲主权债务危机及其对中国—东盟金融合作的启示

欧洲主权债务危机的爆发给本来就复苏缓慢的欧盟经济蒙上了一层阴影,并对全球经济复苏造成严重影响。本文对此次债务危机的原因及其影响进行了深入分析,在此基础上,结合中国—东盟金融合作的具体情况,提出中国—东盟金融合作要认真吸取欧洲主权债务危机的教训,在中国—东盟金融合作过程中,各国政府之间要建立良好的政策协调机制、危机应对机制和监管机制,以防范区域性危机的发生。     

国际金融危机对日本经济的主要影响因素分析——基于MIMIC模型的硏究

2008年由美国次贷危机引发的"金融海啸"席卷全球,日本经济也受到了强烈的冲击。日本MIMIC模型的建立发现了影响日本"危机强度"的国内信贷/GDP和政府债务/GDP两个国内主要影响因素,对各种传染渠道进行检验后发现了这次引起日本金融危机的主要是贸易传染渠道,对上述国内外主要影响因素进行分析,日本政府为刺激经济的一系列扩张性政策,在金融市场中并没有转化为有效的投资和需求反而大大增加了政府债务。     

欧洲债务危机的根源及前景

一年多来,欧洲债务危机一直是国际上谈论的焦点之一。美国出于转移世人对美国经济低迷、债务沉重的关注和原本对欧元影响美元霸主地位的不满,也在竭力指摘欧债危机拖累美国经济。欧债危机原本是二战后欧洲国家长期实行“高工资、高福利”政策导致经济发展迟滞的结果,当前不可能有“立竿见影”的解决办法。然而,当今的欧盟,作为世界第一大经济体,虽经受金融危机的冲击,经济实力并未大为削弱,只要从实际出发,开源节流,着眼长远,欧元区就不会解体,欧洲一体化必将会以“多速欧洲”推进。     

EU Development Predicaments

The massive debt of the EU member countries,the short sales of Wall Street,and intensifying media hype have resulted in the continued spread of the European sovereign debt crisis,a crisis that in fact ...     

Leadership, decision-making and governance in the EU and East Asia: crisis and post-crisis

The global financial crisis of the late 2000s has affected the EU and East Asia differently. The EU has seen its economic, political and social structures undermined by the problems derived from the global crisis and subsequent eurozone sovereign debt crisis. In contrast, East Asia has gone through the global crisis relatively unscathed and has seen its standing at the global level reinforced. As a result, there has been a reconfiguration of leadership, decision-making and governance structures in both regions. In the case of the EU, Germany has emerged as the clear leader of European efforts to solve regional economic problems. Meanwhile, intergovernmentalism has replaced supranationalism as the decision-making and even implementation procedure of choice. Differently, there is no single leader in East Asia. China has become one of the most important powers at the global level, but at the regional level, different countries have shaped East Asia’s response to the crisis. Concurrently, there has been some move towards increasing integration, even though intergovernmentalism still defines governance structures in the region. Thus, the global financial crisis of the late 2000s has helped to shape new leadership, decision-making and governance structures in both regions.     

欧债危机与当前欧洲一体化面临的困境

欧债危机暴露了欧盟经济治理体系的内在缺陷,使得欧洲一体化建设面临严峻的挑战。伴随欧债危机的社会经济动荡和欧盟内部纷争将是近期欧洲政治生态的主色调。同时,欧债危机也促使欧盟内部、特别是欧元区必须加快财政经济政策一体化的步伐。完善和强化经济治理体系,意味着欧盟需要进行必要的条约修改,展现更强有力的政治意志,并需要推动政治联盟建设的配套措施。因此,欧债危机也可能成为深化欧洲一体化建设的催化剂和契机。     

非洲银行业发展趋势与中非金融合作（英文）

The African banking sector is composed of central banks and deposit-The deposittaking financial institutions. The African sector which experienced robust development was not severely hit by the international financial downturn or the European sovereignty debt crisis in terms. The author argues that it is significant to study the African banking sector to further deepen the Sino-African financial cooperation, especially cooperation between central and commercial banks.     

欧债危机对拉美经济的影响:现状及展望

2011年以来,欧洲主权债务危机不断深化,其未来发展存在重大不确定性。新兴经济体受到明显冲击,其经济增长速度明显下滑。随着欧债危机的深化,拉美经济的宏观稳定和金融稳定风险不断累积。拉美经济体面临着政策持续与政策退出、政策刺激与衍生风险、经济增长与金融稳定等目标之间的两难抉择。债务问题还将持续冲击金融市场,拉美经济体的主要金融市场中短期内将保持震荡甚至是下行格局,国际资本流动更加紊乱。未来欧债危机对拉美经济体的影响将体现为:全球经济可能二次探底,部分拉美经济体可能硬着陆,需警惕滞胀风险;全球总需求仍不足,拉美经济体出口将进一步放缓;国际资本流动可能逆转,拉美经济体金融风险需谨慎。     

Sino-European Relations in Debt Crisis

Sovereign debt problems exist not only in European countries.Most advanced countries are troubled with a debt burden.There has been a lot of discussion about the reasons for the crisis in Europe-high g...     

应对金融危机:从比较中看俄罗斯经济的转型与发展

1998年和2008年的两次金融危机俄罗斯都没能幸免。两次危机中,虽然诱因不同,但俄罗斯均表现出了股市下挫、银行遭遇流动性危机、卢布贬值等特征。就危机前的宏观经济背景而言,两次危机期间都发生了国际原油价格的大幅下挫,但石油价格下降的原因、幅度及其对俄罗斯造成的影响却有所不同;两次危机都使俄罗斯受负债拖累,但1998年以主权债务为主,而2008年以企业债为主。从根本上来讲,两次危机都暴露出了俄罗斯"依靠油气收益和外国低息贷款来发展经济"的致命弱点,并且显示出近十年的经济转型与发展尚未从根本上改变其经济结构和发展模式。通过两次危机的对比,也再次证明市场经验不足的转型与发展中国家一定要慎重对待金融的开放与自由化。     

CSDP,Strategy and Crisis Management: Out of Area or Out of Business?

The EU's ineffectiveness vis‐à‐vis Libya and the southern Mediterranean crises more broadly is largely explained by the CSDP's narrow mandate centred on crisis management. The EU's emphasis on external crisis management was strategically sound given the geopolitical context of the 1990s. CSDP's quiet drift towards a ‘softer’ kind of crisis management from the middle of the first decade of the 2000s was also instrumental in highlighting the EU's differences from post‐11 September US unilateralism. That said, (soft) crisis management has become progressively obsolete in the light of a rapidly changing geopolitical environment characterised by an overall retreat of Western power globally, a weakening of America's commitment to European security, an increasingly tumultuous European neighbourhood, and Europe's financial troubles. In order to meet the demands of a changing geopolitical environment, CSDP must break away from its distinctively reactive approach to security to include all the functions normally associated with the military including, chiefly, deterrence and prevention. This would allow the EU to actively shape its regional and global milieu.     

The G20 after Los Cabos: Illusions of Global Economic Governance

The failure of the Los Cabos summit to satisfactorily address the European sovereign debt crisis and ominous world economic outlook, let alone agree on concrete measures to improve the oversight and functioning of the global economy, appears to confirm the diminishing effectiveness and relevance of the G20 as an organ of international governance since its inception in December 2008. While few accomplishments were achieved in the area of global governance during the Mexican presidency, acute collective action problems, made worse by the present economic crisis, paralysed the G20 in the lead-up to and during the Los Cabos summit. These collective action problems and the ensuing failure of global governance are attributable to the absence of leadership evident at both the global and European levels, which in turn testifies to the excessive dispersion of state economic and political power within the international system.     

The security policy of the greens in Italy

This article provides an overview of the current state of financial regionalism in East Asia and discusses why and how the East Asian countries should go forward in terms of financial and monetary regionalism. It highlights intra-regional exchange rate stability as an important regional public good and makes the case for greater exchange rate cooperation. To this end, East Asian countries should gradually reduce their exposure to the US dollar and move towards currency basket regimes which would sustain relative intra-regional exchange rate stability while allowing for sufficient flexibility to accommodate idiosyncratic shocks. Against the backdrop of the global and European financial crisis, the article also urges a reconsideration of the costs and benefits of international – and regional – financial integration and calls for a further strengthening of East Asia's regional financial architecture.     

German crisis management and leadership—from ignorance to procrastination to action

The financial crisis of 2008 and even more so the crisis of the Eurozone drastically increased the demand for decisive leadership and public crisis management. Due to the size of its economy and its position in the global as well as in the European economy, Germany should take the lead in this crisis management. Germany’s management of the two crises differs but also shows strong similarities. A “center-left Grand Coalition” managed the global financial crisis; a global crisis in which Germany was one among several relevant global players. A center-right government under the leadership of the same chancellor then during the sovereign debt crisis manages the Eurozone crisis. This is a regional crisis but with global implications. German government was slow in responding to both crises but acted eventually after some procrastination. Both cases, however, differ with regards to Germany’s actual role in crisis management. During the global financial crisis, other global actors pushed Germany to the forefront. The Eurozone crisis, a regional crisis, demands a leading role of Germany, the largest economy and member state of the EU. The paper, however, argued that the German crisis management with regards to the Eurozone is very much driven by ideas that preserve German norms but do not live up to the challenges of the crisis. Germany’s insistence in its own interests and norms hinders the delivery of a comprehensive crisis management of the Eurozone crisis within the European Union.     

An integrated crisis communication framework for strategic crisis communication with the media: A case study on a financial services provider

Abstract

In order for organisations to survive in an ever-changing milieu in the current business environment, sufficient crisis communication and management practices need to be in place. Despite this, organisational crises are often inefficiently managed, which could be ascribed to the lack of strategic management of crises (Kash & Darling 1998: 180). This article explores the lack of strategic crisis communication processes to ensure effective crisis communication with the media as stakeholder group. It is based on the premise that the media are one of the main influencers of public opinion (Pollard & Hotho 2006: 725), thereby necessitating the need for the accurate distribution of information. Furthermore, the study focuses specifically on the financial industry, which is arguably more sensitive and thus more prone to media reporting because financial services providers manage people's money (Squier 2009). A strategic crisis communication process with the media is therefore proposed, facilitated through an integrated crisis communication framework, proposing a combination of integrated communication (IC) literature, with emphasis on Grunig's theory of communication excellence, to build sustainable media relationships through two-way communication; and a crisis communication process that has proactive, reactive and post-evaluative crisis communication stages, thereby moving away from seeing crisis communication as a predominantly reactive function.     

Explaining the Crisis of the European Migration and Asylum Regime

Since 2013, the European migration and asylum regime has entered a phase of crisis, which reveals the deep interdependencies between its different components (including intra-EU mobility) and the unbalanced nature of its normative foundations. This original structural fragility had not fundamentally compromised the overall functioning of the regime until two major exogenous factors (the economic crisis, with its asymmetrical impact on the eurozone, and the wave of political instability and conflicts on the southern shore of the Mediterranean) brought its intrinsic limits to the point of rupture. The ongoing, highly contentious process of reform of the European migration and asylum regime is an unprecedented and crucially important test of the capacity of one the European Union’s key sectors to evolve under pressure and to adapt to a rapidly and deeply changing geopolitical, economic and demographic environment.