Europe seeks to boost economic growth through integration

Recent turmoil in the world’s financial markets, sparked by concerns about subprime mortgage lending in the United States, seems to have hit Europe particularly hard. European banks are also less profitable than their counterparts
in the United States and less sophisticated in terms of their ability to pass on risk to other financial players.

Would pushing ahead with financial integration help Europe address these problems? What can policymakers do to
reduce the risk of financial crises? And who should be responsible for supervising financial institutions in a unified European market?

These are some of the questions discussed in a new book published by the IMF, entitled Integrating Europe’s Financial Markets.