A világválság és Kelet-Európa

The global crisis of 2007–2009 can be viewed as three interdependent and mutually reinforcing crises: a financial crisis, a liquidity crisis, and a crisis in the real economy. The global financial crisis can be traced to persistent global imbalances in intended savings and intented investment, to the emergence of a shadow banking system and complex financial instruments, and to the authorities dozing at the wheel, unaware that a huge, system-wide time bomb was building. The global liquidity crisis was caused by the global financial crisis and by the inept decision to let one of the world’s premier investment banks, Lehman Brothers, go bankrupt. The combination of impaired credit and loss of wealth caused consumption and investment to plummet, generating the crisis in the global real economy. The ten East European countries that are now EU members were hit first by the global liquidity crisis, then by dramatic declines in capital inflows and plunging demand for their exports. Differential impacts among the ten are explained by such factors as their exchange rate regimes, by the extent to which households found it advantagous to rely on foreign-currency loans, and the appropriateness of fiscal and monetary policies prior to the crisis. Since West Europe’s recovery and growth are likely to be slow, in the future the East European countries will have to rely relatively more on internally-generated sources of productivity growth and enhanced global competitiveness.