Prague Economic Papers 2009, 18(2):99-113 | DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.344

The credit crisis: what lessons for Visegrad?

Colin Lawson¹, Emília Zimková²

¹ Matej Bel University, Banska Bystrica and University of Bath, UK (hsscwl@bath.ac.uk).

² Matej Bel University, Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic (emilia.zimkova@umb.sk).

The origins, growth and importance of the 2007-2009 American and European credit crisis are analysed. The causes lie in the speculative bubbles, the changed attitudes to domestic property, the growth of securitisation and derivatives trading, the changing roles of financial institutions, poor policy choices and inadequate regulation. The Visegrad states are being affected by declining export markets that have triggered domestic recessions, and growing credit problems. The recession is especially penalising economies they have followed risky policies. The course of the recession is currently impossible to predict. But it is possible for these states to draw on the regulatory lessons inflicted on others, and to respond to the challenge of co-regulating the international banks that dominate their domestic markets, and which while too large to fail, are also too large to rescue unaided.

Keywords: regulation, central banking, Bank of England, credit crisis, European Central Ban, Federal Reserve Board (US), Visegrad

JEL classification: E4, E5, F4

Published: January 1, 2009  Show citation