Currency, Credit and Crisis
Central Banking in Ireland and Europe

Ireland's experience of Europe's most spectacular financial bubble, bust and recovery is narrated and dissected by a central banking insider.

Patrick Honohan (Author)

9781108481892, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 May 2019

392 pages, 27 b/w illus. 1 table
23.4 x 15.7 x 2.6 cm, 0.69 kg

'Ireland has overcome its financial crisis with exemplary success, and Professor Honohan's account is readable, clear and fascinating. He clearly believes that the euro area's troubles are not yet over, and it is impossible not to agree.' William A. Allen, Society of Professional Economists

The global financial crisis in 2008 brought central banking to the centre stage, prompting questions about the role of national central banks and - in Europe - of the multi-country European Central Bank. What can central banks do, and what are their limitations? How have they performed? Currency, Credit and Crisis seeks to provide a coherent perspective on the functions of a central bank in a small country by assessing the way in which Ireland's financial crisis from 2010 to 2013 was handled. Drawing on his experiences as Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland and in research and policy work at the World Bank, Patrick Honohan offers a detailed analytical narrative of the origins of the crisis and of policy makers' conduct during its most fraught moments.

Introduction
Part I. Currency: 1. Fixed or floating
2. Toward the euro
3. The euro area crisis
Part II. Credit: 4. Safe and sound banking
5. Faults in financial services
6. The role of the central bank
Part III. Crisis: 7. The guarantee
8. The race to stabilize the banks
9. The bailout
10. Cleaning-up
Part IV. Taking Stock: 11. The European decade of bank failure
12. The Irish economy in boom and bust
13. Lessons learnt.

Subject Areas: Banking [KFFK], Economic history [KCZ], Economic & financial crises & disasters [KCX], Macroeconomics [KCB], Economics [KC], EU & European institutions [JPSN2]