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Czechia is a small open economy and a member state of the European Union. Several important trends and episodes that have determined economic growth can be identified over the last two decades. This chapter deals with some macroeconomic features like macroeconomic and labour market performance within the business cycle, the Czech National Bank (CNB) exchange rate commitment and interest rate policy, increasing indebtedness and budget deficits, foreign trade and the international investment position. We applied publicly available data from Eurostat, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and CNB databases. The data show that the Czech economy was significantly converging to the average economic level of the European Union. We also identified key turning points in business cycles. Macroeconomic data on economic development of the economy indicate an atypical course of the business cycle between 2020 and 2022, which can be evaluated as different from the one that followed the global financial crisis.

The core objective of this study is to examine the impacts of various modes of financing on investment in industrial assets, fiscal resources in public sector, and GDP growth. The main focus of this study is the countries that belong to Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) and Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). For identification of the determinants of investment, fiscal resources, and GDP growth, the methodology is based on three simultaneous equations, estimated by the Pooled Ordinary Least Square (OLS) technique. The most important result is the significant positive impact of domestic credit to private sector on public sector fiscal resources, while it negatively affects the GDP growth and investment in non-financial assets. The significant betas associated with this variable indicate that bridge financing can improve the fiscal position of a government as it ensures the higher tax collection. This relation may be based on the survival and perpetuity of businesses through credit financing facilities during difficult period which ultimately ensures the higher tax collections by the governments. It justifies the significant role of credit financing to support the economic and business activities during the lock down period.

This chapter attempts to clarify and describe the legal and regulatory framework for cryptocurrency with special focus on Malaysia and the threats that it poses from the anti-money laundering perspective. Currently, very few countries have legislations that regulate cryptocurrency. Nonetheless, the crazy surge in prices (to more than 20-folds at some point) has sent both legitimate investors and criminals flocking to cryptocurrencies. This chapter analyses and compares the official reports from various governments, writings of government officials, experts and scholars in journals and newspapers, interviews and draws conclusions on the legal framework of cryptocurrency, and money laundering challenges. The study notes that the decision of the US regulators in allowing Bitcoin futures to trade on major exchanges to be one of the reasons behind the sudden surge. The study also finds that the South Korean regulators’ approach in banning its financial institutions from dealing with virtual currency is a positive one. The chapter stresses that it is not adequate for regulators to warn the public to act with extreme caution and increase their understanding on the risks they take on if they choose to invest in cryptocurrencies. Instead, it is necessary to have comprehensive international and national laws and regulations for the control and management of cryptocurrencies. In addition, the anti-money laundering legal framework must be improved to cater to the new threats posed by cryptocurrency.

Introduction: The COVID-19 crisis is a major shock to the global economy, with serious repercussions on financial markets. Most economies, especially high-income ones, have made considerable efforts, including financial ones, to stimulate aggregate demand in the face of a loss of income on the one hand and to maintain the production potential of companies on the other. This fact required the intervention through various instruments on the money market, but also the mention of the money creation capacity of the banks through the lending mechanism. Apparently, this should have affected the stability of banking systems by increasing the credit risk assumed, but this was avoided because banks are better capitalised and the regulatory framework, including the macroprudential one, was strengthened after the financial crisis of 2007–2009. Therefore, the national authorities had sufficient leeway to respond to the recession and market instability caused by the pandemic by relaxing prudential requirements.

Aim: A theoretical review of literature and good practice of developed banking systems on how macroprudential policy can supplement expansionary monetary policy in overcoming the pandemic crisis. Identifying the risks for the excessive use of relaxed macroprudentialism and formalising recommendations to combine it with monetary policy instruments to overcome stressful situations for banking systems.

Method: In order to study the subject approached in this chapter, there were applied the following research methods, such as analysis and synthesis of conceptual approaches of macroprudentiality and the tools they use, deduction and induction, in order to elucidate the influencing factors using the relaxation of macroprudentiality in the context of pandemic crisis and research on the high-income states experience in order to formulate conclusions and opinions.

Findings: The authors find that countries have responded quickly to the outbreak of the crisis by easing capital and liquidity requirements, or at least refraining from the previously planned tightening. At the same time, the authors noticed that loan-based measures and minimum reserve requirements were rarely relaxed and risk weights were not changed at all.

Originality of the Study: The correlation of different monetary and macroprudential policy instruments in the need to relax them, the analysis of possible risks and the formulation of conclusions on the usefulness of applying these methods to solve the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Implications: Our results suggest that the macroprudential instruments can only be applied if banking systems have previously succeeded in consolidating the capitalisation of banks. A restrictive macroprudential policy can create premises for the use of excess capital in situations such as that generated by the pandemic, but it is recommended only to economies where overregulation does not affect development in periods of normal evolution.

The role of money and monetary policy of the central bank in pursuing macroeconomic stability has significantly changed over the period since the end of World War II. Globalization, liberalization, integration, and transition processes generally shaped the crucial milestones of the macroeconomic development and substantial features of economic policy and its framework in Europe. Policy-driven changes together with variety of exogenous shocks significantly affected the key features of macroeconomic environment on the European continent that fashioned the framework and design of monetary policies.

This chapter examines the key basis of the central bank’s monetary policy on its way to pursue and preserve the internal and external stability of the purchasing power of money. Substantial elements of the monetary policy like objectives and strategies are not only generally introduced but also critically discussed according to their accuracy, suitability, and reliability in the changing macroeconomic conditions. Brief overview of the Eurozone common monetary policy milestones and the past Eastern bloc countries’ experience with a variety of exchange rate regimes provides interesting empirical evidence on origins and implications of vital changes in the monetary policy conduction in Europe and the Eurozone.

Cryptocurrency arose, and grew in popularity, following the financial crisis of 2008 built upon a promise of decentralizing money and payments. An examination of the history of money and banking in the United States demonstrates that stable money benefits from strict controls and commitments by a centralized government through chartering restrictions and a broad safety net, rather than decentralization. In addition, financial crises happen when the government allows money creation to occur outside of official channels. The US central bank is then forced into a policy of supporting a range of money-like assets in order to maintain a grip on monetary policy and some semblance of financial stability.

In addition, this chapter argues that cryptocurrency as a form of shadow money shares many of the problematic attributes of both the privately issued bank notes that created instability during the “free banking” era and the “shadow banking” activities that contributed to the 2008 crisis. In this sense, rather than being a novel and disruptive idea, cryptocurrency replicates many of the systemically destabilizing aspects of privately issued money and money-like instruments.

This chapter proposes that, rather than allowing a new, digital “free banking” era to emerge, there are better alternatives. Specifically, it argues that the Federal Reserve (Fed) should use its tools to improve public payment systems, enact robust utility-like regulations for private digital currencies and limit the likelihood of bubbles using prudential measures.

Traditionally, individual states have shared responsibility for regulating the US insurance industry. The Dodd–Frank Act changes this by tasking the Federal Reserve with regulating the systemic risks that particularly large insurance organizations might pose and assigning the regulation of swap-based substitutes for insurance and reinsurance products to the SEC and CFTC. This paper argues that prudential regulation of large insurance firms and weaknesses in federal swaps regulation could reduce the effectiveness of state-based systems in protecting policyholders and taxpayers from nonperformance in the insurance industry. Swap-based substitutes for traditional insurance and reinsurance contracts offer protection sellers a way to transfer responsibility for guarding against nonperformance into potentially less-effective hands. The CFTC and SEC lack the focus, expertise, experience, and resources to adequately manage the ways that swap transactions can affect US taxpayers’ equity position in global safety nets, while regulators at the Fed refuse to recognize that conscientiously monitoring accounting capital at financial holding companies will not adequately protect taxpayers and policyholders until and unless it is accompanied by severe penalties for managers that willfully hide their firm’s exposure to destructive tail risks.