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The role of uncertainty in the euro crisis: A reconsideration of liquidity preference theory

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  • Pusch, Toralf

Abstract

An active role of fiscal policy has been rediscovered as a crisis remedy at the beginning of the financial crisis all over Europe. More recently, the Euro Crisis with its mounting governments' funding costs for a number of Southern EU member states and Ireland has called this strategy into question. As opposed to this view, the main point of this contribution is to elaborate a link between rising sovereign risk premia in the Eurozone and a major feature of the financial crisis - which culminated in elevated uncertainty after the Lehman collapse. Theoretically, this link is developed with a reference to Keynes' liquidity preference theory. Empirically, a high explanatory power of rising uncertainty in financial markets and detrimental effects of fiscal austerity for the evolution of sovereign risk spreads are demonstrated by means of panel regressions and supplementary correlation analyses.

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  • Pusch, Toralf, 2012. "The role of uncertainty in the euro crisis: A reconsideration of liquidity preference theory," ZÖSS-Discussion Papers 31, University of Hamburg, Centre for Economic and Sociological Studies (CESS/ZÖSS).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cessdp:31
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    Cited by:

    1. Arne Heise, 2014. "Zwangsjacke Euro. Die Fehlkonstruktion des Europäischen Economic Governance-Systems," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 40(1), pages 17-31.
    2. Zaremba, Adam & Kizys, Renatas & Aharon, David Y. & Umar, Zaghum, 2022. "Term spreads and the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from international sovereign bond markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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