The long road to recovery

摘要

Five years on from the start of the financial crisis, the global economy is enduring a feeble convalescence. The euro zone's debt crisis became less acute in 2012, thanks largely to the promise by Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank's president, to do "whatever it takes" to save the single currency. Bond yields in peripheral economies declined (chart 1). But Europe's chronic problems worsened: its financial system continued to fragment (chart 2) and the euro-area economy shrank.