Summary

Financial crises aggravated by high-leveraged financial institutions and/or heavily indebted private agents occur rarely but their economic impacts are severe: firms go bankrupt, credit crunch emerges, unemployment rises dramatically and sovereign debts sour. Like severe natural disasters their forecast is difficult if not impossible. Nonetheless, the literature on financial crises, in particular on the global financial crisis 2007-2009, is already voluminous. The overall picture this literature is painting regarding the emergence and propagation of the latest crisis is rather well researched and main insights are broadly accepted. However, there are some specific aspects of crisis causation, crisis management and the economic impacts of severe financial crises which are not well addressed so far. This book discusses the topics of contagion in emerging stock markets during the Asian and Latin American crisis and the relationship between the executive compensation structure and the banks' riskiness of asset portfolios.