Today, we’re fortunate to have a guest contribution by Jeffry Frieden, Stanfield Professor of International Peace at Harvard University, and coauthor of Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery. This article first appeared on Reuter’s Opinion.
Europe’s Lehman Moment
By Jeffry Frieden
Europe is in the midst of its variant of the great debt crisis that hit the United States in 2008. Fears abound that if things go wrong, the continent will face its own “Lehman moment” — a recurrence of the sheer panic that hit American and world markets after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008. How did Europe arrive at this dire strait? What are its options? What is likely to happen?