The Nordic financial crisis had it all: a botched liberalization, a huge boom followed by an even bigger bust, massive taxpayer-financed bailouts and, finally, deep long-run gains. The first-class team of scholars mobilized in this book convincingly tell a story that should be carefully studied by economists, bankers and policymakers. After this book, no one should be able to say: If we only knew ! Charles Wyplosz, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland The financial crisis in Scandinavia in the early 1990s was a forerunner of the later world-wide crisis in 2007/8. Although the initial causation was different, the impact on their banks, though more localised, was just as severe. So we can benefit, and already policymakers have done so, from learning the lessons in this book on how to restore shattered banking systems to health. For this we owe a debt of gratitude to the editors, who have put together a series of key papers that emerged from a much larger exercise on the crisis that was earlier reported in four volumes in Swedish and Finnish. Amongst the many studies on current and past financial crises, this is a classic must-read . Charles A.E. Goodhart, London School of Economics, UK The Nordic experience with financial crisis resolution could not be more timely. Everyone cites it as an example of how it should be done , but rarely does one find careful and detailed analysis. Now policymakers and others searching for guidance will know where to look. Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley, US Following World War II, Nordic countries were commonly regarded as successful and stable economies. This perception was, however, shattered in the early 1990s when Finland and Sweden encountered severe financial crises. Here, the authors explore the symptoms of financial crisis decreasing real income, soaring unemployment and exploding public deficits and their devastating effects. The book compares and contrasts the experiences of Finland and Sweden, then adopts an international perspective, encompassing the experiences of Asia, Latin America, Denmark and Norway. Lessons from the 1990s crisis are drawn, and possible solutions prescribed. The conclusion is that long-term effects of financial crises financial liberalization and integration are not as dramatic as the short-term effects, but may prove to be of greater importance over time. Only the future will show whether these long-term benefits will balance or even outweigh the enormous short-term costs of the crises. Highly relevant to the current international financial crisis currently afflicting the world economy, this timely book will prove invaluable to economists and other social scientists with a general interest in financial crises, and to those with a more specific interest in the evolution and models of Scandinavian economies.

This study examines the banking crises in Finland, Norway and Sweden, which took place in the early 1990s, and draws some policy conclusions from their experiences. One key conclusion is that factors in addition to business cycle effects explain the Nordic countries financial problems. Although the timing of the deregulation in all three countries coincided with a strongly expansionary macroeconomic momentum, the main reasons for the banking crises were the delayed policy responses, the structural characteristics of the financial systems, and the banks inadequate internal risk-management controls.

Welfare and the Great Recession surveys and analyses welfare consequences in the period following the financial crisis in Europe. It investigates how the burdens of the recession were shared between countries, between different socio-economic groups across Europe, and within individual countries, and offers new evidence that demonstrates the importance of the welfare state and government policies in sheltering populations from serious economic contraction. The first comprehensive study of the Great Recession in Europe that focuses on household level welfare consequences, this edited volume relates financial hardship to institutional characteristics such as welfare regimes, currency regimes, socio-political patterns, affluence levels, public debt, and policy reactions to periods of crisis. It takes into account stimulus versus austerity, the degree of social protection emphasis, the commitment to redistribution, and the significance of activism. Widely comparative, Welfare and the Great Recession combines comparisons of thirty countries with an in-depth study of nine country cases to offer various lessons from the crisis experience in Europe and reflect on welfare futures in a globalized crisis-prone environment.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the biggest event of worldwide proportion was the 2008 global financial crisis, which was caused primarily by ineffective governance, failed surveillance systems, and implementation flaws. While fiscal and monetary policies succeeded in pulling many countries out of a financial freefall, most economies have performed beneath pre-recession levels as governments continued to struggle with their finances. Examining the financial crisis from the viewpoint of intangible assets provides a different perspective from traditional economic approaches. National Intellectual Capital (NIC), comprised mainly of human capital, market capital, process capital, renewal capital, and financial capital, is a valuable intangible asset and a key source of national competitive advantage in today’s knowledge economy. The authors—pioneers in the field—present extensive data and a rigorous conceptual framework to analyze the connections between the global financial crisis and NIC development. Covering the period from 2005 to 2010 across 48 countries, the authors establish a positive correlation between NIC and GDP per capita and consider the impact of NIC investment for short-term recovery and long-term risk control and strategy formulation. Each volume in a series of SpringerBriefs on NIC and the financial crisis provides in-depth coverage of the impact of the crisis, the aftermath, future prospects, and policy implications for a regional cluster. This volume focuses on Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

The Finnish economy is a victory over hardship, a success story with few equivalents. During the period 1860-2000 the gross domestic product grew 21-fold, while EU nations on average achieved 11-fold growth. Today, Finland is known for its competitiveness, high educational standards, negligible corruption, expertise in creating and using high technology, and successful companies, most notably Nokia. This book tells how Finland astonishingly evolved from an internationally insignificant agrarian economy to the affluent, knowledge-based, welfare society that it is now. The Road to Prosperity: An Economic History of Finland offers an overview of several centuries of economic progress -- with a keen eye on negative effects of growth. The articles in this beautifully illustrated work contain long-term analyses of business, foreign trade, agriculture, and employment. In addition, there is coverage of the development of banking, the public sector, income distribution, the advance of the information society, and welfare. And the Finnish story is woven seamlessly into the tapestry of international economics. The contributors are prominent scholars of Finnish economic history and economics; the foreword being a product of distinguished American economic historian Joel Mokyr, winner of the Heineken Prize for History 2006.

This paper discusses the findings of the Financial System Stability Assessment for Sweden. The Swedish financial system is large and highly interconnected, putting a premium on the accompanying policy framework. Relative to the size of the domestic economy, the financial system is among Europe’s largest. It features complex domestic and international linkages, reflecting Sweden’s role as a regional financial hub. However, the macrofinancial risks have grown since 2011, for example the rising share of highly indebted households. Stress tests also suggest that banks and nonbanks are largely resilient to solvency shocks, but concerns persist about the ability of bank models to capture unexpected losses.