The euro area remains in a state of flux and appears to be unsustainable in its present form. The outcome of the crisis may be unknown for years and a judgement on the project's success or failure may be out of reach for decades.

In the meantime, analysts, portfolio managers and traders will still have daily, weekly, quarterly and annual benchmarks. They will have to analyze economic developments in the euro area and their impacts on financial assets. The objective of this book is to provide a framework for that analysis that is comprehensible to most financial market participants.

The book begins with a focus on coincident and leading economic indicators for the euro area. The following section looks at euro-area institutions. The next chapter focuses on the euro crisis. It attempts to provide an explanation of its origins and a glimpse of the potential outcomes. In addition, the tools needed to analyze the crisis as it evolves are presented. The last sections provide information unique to the economies of Germany, France, the U.K., Switzerland, Sweden and Norway.

David Powell (London, UK) is a Senior Economist at Bloomberg LP based in London where he writes the daily Bloomberg Brief on economic developments in Europe, as well as publish a weekly Bloomberg Currency Chart Book with analysis of foreign-exchange market, forecast macroeconomic variables for the euro-area and G-10 exchange rates, present views on the European economy and currencies to Bloomberg clients around the globe, write real-time analysis of European economic indicators for Bloomberg First Word, and discuss economic and financial market developments on Bloomberg TV. Prior to this David was a G-10 Currency Strategist, Vice President at Bank of America -- Merrill Lynch where he forecasted G-10 FX rates with primary responsibility for Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK, presented the views of the currency strategy team to the European client base and internally, developed trade recommendations based on fundamental and technical analysis, contributed analytical pieces to the weekly and monthly publications of the global FX strategy group, wrote morning commentary on the currency markets and verbally delivered to the trading floor and analysed high frequency economic data for the FX traders and sales force. He holds a master's degree from the London School of Economics, where he wrote his dissertation on the creation of monetary union in Europe, and a bachelor's degree from New York University.