The paper argues that the foreign savings-led strategy followed by Eastern European economies created in 2000s almost a decade long carry trade of easy credit. That, among other things, transformed the domestic financial sector into largely foreign-owned universal banks with weak linkages with the domestic productive sector. While the credit and consumption boom helped gloss over deeper structural problems then, now these economies need to step up their efforts in industrial and innovation policies for paving their way out of the crisis.

 
January 22, 2010.