The euro crisis may have been an inevitable result of the ideologically driven arguments for adopting the common currency—or of incompatible national economic philosophies.

[H]istory … suggests taking more seriously concerns about inequality and, specifically, the resentment and alienation of once-privileged groups who feel left behind.

Which view is correct—that which attributes the likelihood of a weak economy in 2015 to the unfortunate concurrence of transitory problems in a number of the world's largest economies, or that which warns of secular stagnation due to the declining productive potential of innovation?

It almost seems as if the European economic model is continuously experiencing an existential crisis.

The fact that resolving the crisis will be costly has one silver lining. It concentrates attention on the need to reform the institutions of the euro area to prevent equally costly crises from occurring again.

Discussions over the past year have yielded agreement on the outlines of what needs to be done to strengthen the global financial architecture. But the task of filling in the details remains.

Why, given that this is a global credit crisis and recession, have policy makers in other countries failed to move as aggressively? And why have US policy measures … not halted the downward spiral?

However well the European economy may have performed in the past, there are reasons to worry about whether it can keep pace in a world of accelerating technical change and global competition led by the rise of India and China.

China's exchange rate system is a work in progress. Notwithstanding all the attention attracted by the dramatic decisions this July, that process has only started.

Constructive adjustments in the monetary and fiscal policy mix in Asia, the United States, and Europe would be an important step toward a healthier world economy.

Adopting the euro will have costs for the so-called accession economies, but so would shunning the euro. In fact, there are compelling reasons to think that adopting the euro will be less costly than the other monetary options available to the countries of ‘new’ Europe.