This essay examines the historical roots of the eurozone crisis, tracing the roots of ongoing political and economic problems back to agreements that were made around German reunification in 1989.

In this CGS/IIGG Working Paper, Jeffry A. Frieden reviews the historical record on the political fallout from the unraveling of macroeconomic imbalances. He warns that the coming adjustments may test the capacity of national governments and international institutions to maintain an open international economic order.

While some G-20 leaders want to map out a "New Deal for the Twenty-First Century," CFR's Stewart Patrick says they risk spawning a twenty-first century version of the Great Depression if they don't agree on coordinated short-term steps to stimulate economic activity and to ensure both credit and trade flow freely.

In this report, Benn Steil shows that the financial crisis is the inevitable bust of a classic credit boom, and explains how monetary, taxation, and home ownership promotion policy combined with other features of the financial system to fuel an unsustainable buildup in debt. He recommends significant reforms to reverse the debt financing bias and make the system more resilient to falls in asset prices. This report is also available in Arabic.

As the economic crisis has spread from financial markets to real economies in countries around the world, governments have understandably focused on short-term measures to contain the damage. But in order for policymakers to tackle today’s global economic crisis, this report argues, they must go beyond bailouts and stimulus packages and focus on one of the crisis's root causes: imbalances between savings and investment in major countries. This report is also available in Arabic.