GIIPS in the Sovereign Debt Crisis

Abstract

Finance and financial markets were at the heart of the global economic crisis that began in August 2007. 2010 has seen the transformation of the global financial crisis into a sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone. Starting from Greece, the debt crisis has put intense pressure on the bonds of other Eurozone countries, most notably Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Thus he Greek problem has become an Eurozone-wide problem. The crisis has hit these countries with large public deficits and debts. It also happens that they have undergone increasingly large current account deficits. Another feature of these countries has been their inflation rates, which have exceeded those in the rest of the Eurozone. All crisis countries have experienced a strong domestic demand shock. This shock, in turn, may have different causes. In Greece and Portugal fiscal policy has been mostly easy during this period along with credit boom. Ireland and Spain have undergone a credit boom and housing price bubble; when the bubble burst, both countries have had to bail banks out. In all these cases, the real exchange rate appreciation and the current deficits appear as consequences of these shocks.