The ongoing eurozone debt crisis continues to threaten the future of the single currency, even as European policymakers work to forge a closer political and fiscal union, explains this CFR Issue Guide.

Sebastian Mallaby argues that the woes of the U.S. workforce should convince politicans of the urgent need for tax, welfare, and education reforms.

Michael Spence and David Brady cite risk aversion, rigid political systems, and a dearth of effective policy tools among the factors incapacitating political leadership in the world's major economies.

Robert Rubin writes that the ECB would risk losing its credibility and stoking inflation if it did not impose conditionality on its bond-buying program.

Sebastian Mallaby argues that the conditionality of the ECB plan to resume sovereign bond purchases will blunt the intervention's effectiveness.

Amartya Sen writes: "Europe has been extraordinarily important for the world, which has learned so much from it. It can remain globally important by setting its own house in order--economically, politically, and socially. The first step is to understand properly, with some clarity, the policy challenges that Europe faces today. A failure to do so will reverberate far beyond Europe's own borders."

Sebastian Mallaby argues that policymakers must decide whether the federal government will ensure the stability of the shadow banking system.

Benn Steil's column in Dow Jones' Financial News, co-authored with Dinah Walker, provides new evidence highlighting the endemic flaws in LIBOR as both a benchmark for setting market lending rates and a central-bank metric for judging policy effectiveness.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, confronting slowing growth and high unemployment, should unveil new stimulus tools at its next policy meeting, writes CFR's Sebastian Mallaby in an op ed.

As the global economic crisis increases the importance of trade, and China and the United States eye greater engagement with Southeast Asia, ASEAN may play a more robust role in the region.

Sebastian Mallaby argues that equity investors would prefer to have big banks broken up than forced to raise more capital.

To diagnose the ills of the struggling global economy, Michael Spence considers the impediments to growth in both advanced and developing nations.

The 2010 debate over the fate of the Bush tax cuts continues to take place in the current bleak economic and fiscal environment.

A proposed centralized banking supervisor could help stabilize Europe's struggling banks and increase vital capital flows within the euro area, says expert Domenico Lombardi.

The financial and political crisis facing Europe can only be redressed with further eurozone integration that the continent's publics may not be ready for, says CFR's Charles A. Kupchan.

Sebastian Mallaby argues that the only way to end the era of "too-big-to-fail" is to break up the banking behemoths.

EU approval of a new proposal for a banking and fiscal union would help reassure global financial markets and alleviate the eurozone debt crisis, says Bruegel's Benedicta Marzinotto.

Sebastian Mallaby examines the Spanish experience with countercyclical capital buffers to argue that even the most innovative banking regulations will never take taxpayers completely off the hook when banks go bust.

G20 members meeting in Mexico won a commitment on banking sector integration despite limited influence on eurozone politics, says expert Jacob Funk Kirkegaard.

Michael Spence argues that much of the furor over austerity misses the fact that deficit reduction is only one step on the road to restoring competitiveness, employment, and growth.