This book explains why the euro area's progress in reining-in the risks arising from the well-documented bi-directional financial contagion transmission mechanism that links sovereigns to commercial banks has been more prominent in respect of the channel of contagion moving from banks to sovereigns.

Phoebus L. Athanassiou (LLB, LLM, PhD) is Senior Lead Legal Counsel with the Legal Services of the European Central Bank, a published author of works on banking and financial law, and a member of the Academic Faculty of the Institute of Law and Finance at the Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Angelos T. Vouldis (MEng, MSc, PhD) is an Economist at the European Central Bank, with year-long policy experience in financial crises and the stress testing of financial institutions. He has published extensively in leading journals on banking, financial stability, business cycles and institutional change.

Introduction

(1) The Sovereign-Banks Nexus: An Economic Analysis

(2) The European Sovereign Debt Crisis as a Source of Case Studies

(3) An Economic Analysis of Policy Options

(4) Closing the First Channel of Contagion: Hitherto European Actions and Their Critique

(5) Closing the Second Channel of Contagion: Legal Assessment of Policy Options

Concluding Remarks