Being the first casualty of the international financial crisis, Iceland was, in many ways, turned into a laboratory when it came to responding to one of the largest corporate failures on record. This edited volume offers the most wide-ranging treatment of the Icelandic financial crisis and its political, economic, social, and constitutional consequences. Interdisciplinary, with contributions from historians, economists, sociologists, legal scholars, political scientists and philosophers, it also compares and contrasts the Icelandic experience with other national and global crises. It examines the economic magnitude of the crisis, the social and political responses, and the unique transitional justice mechanisms used to deal with it. It looks at backward-looking elements, including a societal and legal reckoning – which included the indictment of a Prime Minister and jailing of leading bankers for their part in the financial crisis – and forward-looking features, such as an attempt to rewrite the Icelandic constitution. Throughout, it underscores the contemporary relevance of the Icelandic case. While the Icelandic economic recovery has been much quicker than expected; it shows that public faith in political elites has not been restored. This text will be of key interest to scholars, policy-makers and students of the financial crisis in such fields as European politics, international political economy, comparative politics, sociology, economics, contemporary history, and more broadly the social sciences and humanities.

Iceland became one of the symbols of the global financial crisis. It provides an ideal test case for the perceptions of economists, in particular their ability to anticipate crises. The book contains papers and reports, written prior to the collapse of Iceland's financial system, about the economy. What did and didn't they see coming, and why?

This book presents a detailed account of Iceland’s recovery from the tumultuous banking collapse that overturned its financial industry in 2008. Early chapters recount how Iceland’s central bank was unable to follow the quantitative easing policies of the time to print money and save the banks, while serving the world ́s smallest currency area. The book goes on to explore how the government exercised force majeure rights to implement emergency legislation aimed at preventing the “socialization of losses”. Later chapters investigate how, eight years later, these policies have yielded renewed growth and reinvigorated liquidity streams for the financial system. The authors argue that Iceland, long-called the ‘canary in the coal mine’ of the developed world, offers important lessons for the future. This book will be useful to all readers interested in better understanding the unique history of Iceland’s banking crisis and the phenomena of its recovery.

Eirikur Bergmann explains the exceptional case of Iceland's fantastical boom, bust and rapid recovery after the Crash of 2008 and explores the lessons for the wider EU crisis and for over-reaching economies that over-rely on financial markets.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the biggest event of worldwide proportion was the 2008 global financial crisis, which was caused primarily by ineffective governance, failed surveillance systems, and implementation flaws. While fiscal and monetary policies succeeded in pulling many countries out of a financial freefall, most economies have performed beneath pre-recession levels as governments continued to struggle with their finances. Examining the financial crisis from the viewpoint of intangible assets provides a different perspective from traditional economic approaches. National Intellectual Capital (NIC), comprised mainly of human capital, market capital, process capital, renewal capital, and financial capital, is a valuable intangible asset and a key source of national competitive advantage in today’s knowledge economy. The authors—pioneers in the field—present extensive data and a rigorous conceptual framework to analyze the connections between the global financial crisis and NIC development. Covering the period from 2005 to 2010 across 48 countries, the authors establish a positive correlation between NIC and GDP per capita and consider the impact of NIC investment for short-term recovery and long-term risk control and strategy formulation. Each volume in a series of SpringerBriefs on NIC and the financial crisis provides in-depth coverage of the impact of the crisis, the aftermath, future prospects, and policy implications for a regional cluster. This volume focuses on Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

The essays in this book describe and analyze the current contours of the international financial system, covering both developed and developing countries, and focusing on the ways in which the current international financial system structures, and is affected by, profound inequalities in the international system. This keen analysis of key topics in international finance takes a heterodox perspective, with focus on the role of inequalities in power in shaping the structure and outcomes in the international sphere.

ÿWith a population of just 329,000 (barely more than Nottingham), Iceland is the most thinly-populated country in Europe, and 80% of it is uninhabited. Despite this, in the 1100 years since humans first settled there, the Icelanders have built a remarkably resourceful, diverse and robust community ? and they have never had to go to war. In fact, in 2013 the United Nations ranked Iceland the 13th most developed country in the world. Professor Gisli Thorsteinsson is Professor of Education in Reykjavik, while Dr David Whittaker is a retired academic specializing in geopolitics. The two authors have written this book to record and explain Iceland?s history and its many achievements and to introduce readers who may not be familiar with the country to the range and vitality of Icelandic thinking and achievement.

This Selected Issues paper examines implications of capital account liberalization in Iceland. Capital controls were critical in 2008 to avoid a more severe collapse of the Icelandic economy. Six years later, capital inflows have been liberalized, but most outflows remain restricted. Iceland has used the breathing room to reduce flow and stock vulnerabilities, strengthen institutions, and prepare for the lifting of capital controls. Simulations using the central bank’s Quarterly Macroeconomic Model (QMM) suggest that, compared with the 2008 crisis episode, the economy can better withstand the impact of an abrupt removal of capital controls. However, the outcome would be dependent on a number of factors, including resident depositor behavior.

"While each financial crisis is unique and has its own special features, there are a lot of similarities in the dynamics leading to a crisis and also in their resolutions. Some of the financial crises are caused by the lack of appropriate regulation, but often the regulators were ignoring the signals of imminent crises, while serving implicitly or explicitly, the financial industry. In his book, Prof. Kedar-Levy is providing a fresh look at many famous financial crises around the globe, analysing their causes and effects. The special role of regulators is highlighted, including the "Capture Theory" in practice. This book is suitable for economist as well as for those interested in economic history, and for all those concerned with the stability of current international financial markets. Professor Dan GalaiThe Hebrew University, Jerusalem"--