Putting the Eurozone Crisis Experience in Perspective

Author(s):  
Raphael Reinke ◽  
Stefanie Walter ◽  
Ari Ray ◽  
Nils Redeker

Much research has treated the Eurozone crisis as a sui generis event. Yet we can only examine exactly how the Eurozone crisis is distinct from other crises if we compare it to other, similar crises. This chapter therefore develops a comparative framework that allows for us to study the distributional trade-offs inherent in crisis management of a large set of crises, including the Eurozone crisis. It argues the relative costs of external vs. internal adjustment will shape crisis politics, including the willingness of these countries to accept harsh conditionality in return for external financial support. The chapter develops measures to compare national vulnerabilities to internal and external adjustment and analyzes the crisis responses for a sample of 142 crisis episodes that occurred in a sample of 122 countries between 1990 and 2014. Our analysis shows that the vulnerability profile is a useful tool for analyzing crisis responses across a wide variety of balance-of-payments (BOP) crises. It also demonstrates that the Eurozone crisis is unusual because all crisis countries were located in the “misery corner”: Deficit country vulnerabilities to both internal and external adjustments were exceptionally high, and vulnerabilities frequently increased over the course of the crisis. In such a setting, quick and decisive crisis solutions are hard to find.

1973 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi

The recent uncertainties about aid flows have underscored the need for achieving an early independence from foreign aid. The Perspective Plan (1,965-85) had envisaged the termination of Pakistan's dependence on foreign aid by 1985. However, in the context of West Pakistan alone the time horizon can now be advanced by several years with considerable confidence in its economy to pull the trick. The difficulties of achieving independence from foreign aid can be seen by reference to the fact that aid flows make it possible for the policy-maker to pursue such ostensibly incompatible objectives as a balance in international payments (i.e., foreign aid finances the balance of payments), higher rates of economic growth (Lei, it pulls up domestic saving and investment levels), a high level of employment (i.e., it keeps the industries working at a fuller capacity than would otherwise be the case), and a reasonably stable price level (i.e., it lets a higher level of imports than would otherwise be possible). Without aid, then a simultaneous attainment of all these objectives at the former higher levels together with the balance in foreign payments may become well-nigh impos¬sible. Choices are, therefore, inevitable not for definite places in the hierarchy of values, but rather for occasional "trade-offs". That is to say, we will have to" choose how much to sacrifice for the attainment of one goal for the sake of somewhat better realization of another.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232199210
Author(s):  
Sabine Kuhlmann ◽  
Geert Bouckaert ◽  
Davide Galli ◽  
Renate Reiter ◽  
Steven Van Hecke

This article provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of COVID-19 crisis governance in the first half of 2020 from a cross-country comparative perspective. It focuses on the issue of opportunity management, that is, how the crisis was used by relevant actors of distinctly different administrative cultures as a window of opportunity. We started from an overall interest in the factors that have influenced the national politics of crisis management to answer the question of whether and how political and administrative actors in various countries have used the crisis as an opportunity to facilitate, accelerate or prevent changes in institutional settings. The objective is to study the institutional settings and governance structures, (alleged) solutions and remedies, and constellations of actors and preferences that have influenced the mode of crisis and opportunity management. Finally, the article summarizes some major comparative findings drawn from the country studies of this Special Issue, focusing on similarities and differences in crisis responses and patterns of opportunity management. Points for practitioners With crises emerging in ever shorter sequences of time, governing turbulence and using crises for strategic institutional decisions has become an increasingly important issue for policymakers. Aiming at effective and proportionate responses, policymakers must take the institutional conditions, administrative traditions and relevant actor constellations of crisis management into account, which are key to learn from other countries’ experiences. Comparing these experiences and analyzing the politics of crisis governance from a cross-country perspective may help policymakers to identify strengths and weaknesses of their own national/regional approaches and to seize crisis-related windows of opportunity for institutional reforms at the national and international levels.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Wu ◽  
Lei Gao ◽  
Zhibin Chen ◽  
Xiao Li

Purpose This paper aims to investigate, in China stock market, whether the reputation loss of a firm caused by financial restatements will lead to significant economic consequences such as financial distress and how a firm should respond to such a crisis. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses Chinese A-share listed firms from 2004 to 2013 as research samples to test research hypotheses using regression analyses. Findings This paper finds a significant relationship between restatements and financial distress, and such a relationship will be affected by both the type and the magnitude of restatements. More importantly, we find joint effects of restatements and state ownership on financial distress, which provides a unique contribution to the extant literature in restatement, financial distress and crisis management using Chinese stock markets data. It shows that ownership structure, affecting the firm reputation and crisis responses strategies, plays a significant role in consequences of restatements, and it is more important for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to undertake an appropriate crisis response strategy to reduce the negative impact of restatements. Practical implications The results suggest that the damage to a firm’s reputation caused by restatements is affected by restatement type and state ownership. To reduce the negative consequences and avoid financial distress, firms should consider both the restatement type and their firm characteristics when deciding different actions to respond to restatements. In particular, SOEs should act in a more timely manner and take reputation-rebuilding actions such as taking the responsibility and making apologies and taking prompt remedial actions after restatements to regain the public trust and avoid more serious economic consequences. The Chinese government should strengthen their supervisions of SOEs and put more effort to help SOEs reduce administrative procedures, and to improve the efficiency of the implementation of recovery plans after restatements to reinstate firm credibility. Originality/value First, this paper is among the first to link financial restatement, including the type and magnitude of restatements, with financial distress, and the authors find a significant relationship between restatement type and financial distress in China stock markets. Second, this paper is the first to examine whether there is a joint effect of state ownership and restatements on financial distress. Third, this study examines how the magnitude and pervasiveness of restatements influence financial distress and find that both result in an increase of financial distress. Finally, this paper is among the first to connect crisis management and accounting literature to explain how a reputation loss caused by financial restatement may damage a firm’s value and subsequent performance, and based on which to suggest crisis-responses strategies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Blondin ◽  
Arjen Boin

Abstract The nation state is discovering the limits of its crisis management capacities. The Ebola and Zika outbreaks, the financial crisis, the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine, sinking ships overfilled with refugees, cyber-attacks, urban terrorism and existential environmental threats serve as strong reminders of the complex origins and transboundary dimensions of many contemporary crises and disasters. As these transboundary aspects of modern crises become increasingly manifest, the need for international, collaborative responses appears ever clearer. But that collaboration does not always emerge in time (or at all). Even in the European Union, which has various transboundary crisis management mechanisms in place, the willingness to initiate joint crisis responses varies. This observation prompted our research question: Why do states collaborate in response to some transboundary crises but not others? We bring together the crisis and collective action literatures to formulate a theoretical framework that can help answer this question. This article identifies crucial factors that facilitate a possible pathway toward a joint response.


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