Books on Iceland/Argentina

daithi_dearg

In preparation for the failure of the euro I was going to start reading books about these economies which seem to have taken opposite approaches to what we're going through from my limited knowledge. Any suggestions?

karlth

daithi_dearg wrote: »

In preparation for the failure of the euro I was going to start reading books about these economies which seem to have taken opposite approaches to what we're going through from my limited knowledge. Any suggestions?

In regards to Iceland I wouldn't recommend any book in particular but this article is very thorough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932012_Icelandic_financial_crisis

Here is a similar article about the Argentine crisis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_economic_crisis_(1999%E2%80%932002)

irishguy

daithi_dearg wrote: »

In preparation for the failure of the euro I was going to start reading books about these economies which seem to have taken opposite approaches to what we're going through from my limited knowledge. Any suggestions?

Watching that program on RTE1 last night too

I'd also be interested to see if there were any good books on the subject.

euroboom13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Finance

not a book on recent currency issues, but a great start off book based on 1900-1940 monetary policy similar to whats up now.
must readit again really informative

http://www.voxeu.org/

later12

The nature of sovereign defaults have changed dramatically in the last few hundred years (in terms of gunboats and draconian enforceability) and 30 years (in terms of Brady bonds, efficient BAC processes, etc) respectively. It's quite arguable that we're getting far better at handling defaults, and are now quite proficient at minimising the most adverse repercussions of the past. Argentina in the early 2000s was a bit of an aberration and I would be reluctant to look to that as an example of anything we might apply to Europe.

In fact, there is no correct template which we might apply to Europe, since the prospect of sovereign defaults within a monetary and not a political or fiscal union is such a bizarre situation; this is untrod ground.

However, to get a better feel for sovereign defaults in general, I would recommend this very read-able, broad IMF paper as a good starting point.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/31504400/2/II-TWO-HUNDRED-YEARS-OF-SOVEREIGN-DEFAULT

I haven't heard any authoritative reviews of Constantin Gurgiev's book on the prospects of an Irish default, but I have leafed through it and it appears to have lots of interesting economic history pertaining to sov defaults, so it may be worth looking at. Gurdgiev has a habit of interpreting things a way that suits his economic and political positions, however.

Johnny Cage

Hi, here is two books i would recommend reading, first one about Iceland http://mises.org/document/6137/Deep-Freeze-Icelands-Economic-Collapse

I have read half this book so far and am enjoying it. Also this book explains the euro really well http://mises.org/document/6045/The-Tragedy-of-the-Euro

This is a really good read explaining how the euro came into being and how it cant survive in its current form. Both books are free to read aswell.