The global financial crisis and its effects on the international monetary funds

ABSTRACT This paper aims to analyze the innovations introduced in the functions of the International Monetary Fund in the context of the 2008 economic and financial crisis. This promoted an action that aimed to strengthen the surveillance function through the adoption of the Integrated Surveillance. Thus, alongside the traditional conditionality based on an a posteriori implementation of adequate economic policies, a criterion of ex ante conditionality in the precautionary branches was also introduced or based on the economic characteristics of the country to be financed. Concerning traditional conditionality, it will be asked whether the IMF has adopted a less extensive approach than its role.

Four New Horsemen of an Apocalypse? Solar Flares, Super-volcanoes, Pandemics, and Artificial Intelligence

If economists have largely failed to predict or prevent the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, and the more disastrous economic collapse associated with the pandemic of 2020, what else is the profession missing? This is the question that motivates this survey. Specifically, we want to highlight four catastrophic risks – i.e., risks that can potentially result in global catastrophes of a much larger magnitude than either of the 2008 or 2020 events. The four risks we examine here are: Space weather and solar flares, super-volcanic eruptions, high-mortality pandemics, and misaligned artificial intelligence. All four have a non-trivial probability of occurring and all four can lead to a catastrophe, possibly not very different from human extinction. Inevitably, and fortunately, these catastrophic events have not yet occurred, so the literature investigating them is by necessity more speculative and less grounded in empirical observations. Nevertheless, that does not make these risks any less real. This survey is motivated by the belief that economists can and should be thinking about these risks more systematically, so that we can devise the appropriate ways to prevent them or ameliorate their potential impacts.

The source of financial contagion and spillovers: An evaluation of the covid-19 pandemic and the global financial crisis

This study investigates the reaction of stock markets to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 (GFC) and compares their influence in terms of risk exposures. The empirical investigation is conducted using the modified ICSS test, DCC-GARCH, and Diebold-Yilmaz connectedness analysis to examine financial contagion and volatility spillovers. To further reveal the impact of these two crises, the statistical features of tranquil and crisis periods under different time intervals are also compared. The test results show that although the outbreak’s origin was in China, the US stock market is the source of financial contagion and volatility spillovers during the pandemic, just as it was during the GFC. The propagation of shocks is considerably higher between developed economies compared to emerging markets. Additionally, the results show that the COVID-19 pandemic induced a more severe contagious effect and risk transmission than the GFC. The study provides an extensive examination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the GFC in terms of financial contagion and volatility spillovers. The results suggest the presence of strong co-movements of world stock markets with the US equity market, especially in periods of financial turmoil.

Intersectoral and spatial spill-overs of firms’ bankruptcy in Spain

This paper employs provincial data to study the spatial and intersectoral spill-overs in aggregate failure rates in Spain, by using an Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation. The analysis is based on NUTS3 data over the time span 2005Q1-2013Q4. By speculating on the effects of the Spanish financial crisis, we document empirical evidence of the presence of spatial spill-overs among neighboring counties. Furthermore, some intersectoral spill-overs are also detected: we observe that Industry and Agriculture exhibit a positive impact on the Service sector. These results can be useful to design proper policy rules to better manage the spread of bankruptcies over time and space.

The Role and Activities of the Hellenic Red Cross During the First Five Years of the Economic Crisis in Greece (2010-2014)—A Retrospective Study

Aim. To investigate the contribution of the Hellenic Red Cross to the Greek Society during the first five and more severe years (2010-2014) of the profound financial crisis in Greece. Material And Methods. We retrospectively investigated the actions and contribution of the Hellenic Red Cross for the aforementioned five-year period. The research material was accumulated by research in the Internet, the archives, and the official webpage of the Hellenic Red Cross (Google, official web page of the ICRC and IFRC), from the Hellenic Ministry of Health and the Hellenic Ministry of Immigration and Asylum. Results. A huge amount of over 247 actions were detected for the research period. More than 17,708 people were examined and treated from the specialized medical personnel of the Hellenic Red Cross and 3,266 individuals were trained in basic first aid and hygiene. The final amount of 297,757€ were donated and 5,880 welfare packages were delivered. Conclusions. The current study has concluded that the contribution of the Hellenic Red Cross to the Greek society during the most severe phase of the recent financial crisis was outstanding and consists an example for any other Non-Governmental, Non for Profit Organizations in the future.

Confinement, Food security and consumption of subsidized products in Tunisia: Worsening trade deficit

The present paper attempts to know if the confinement in Tunisia has an impact on the consumption of subsidized products and in turn on food security and on the trade balance or not. Firstly, by analyzing the place of subsidized products in Tunisian economy. Then via the determination of limits of confinement in Tunisia specially trade deficit. Finally through the analysis of different problems given by confinement on food security and increased of percentage of cancer. According to our analysis, confinement of COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented economic, food security and financial crisis in Tunisia especially on the trade deficit witch is suffer before of various difficulty. The confinement can be considred a good solution for COVID but it have many limits on food security for Tunisian and on incresed of consumption of subsidized products in Tunisia.