Political Salon: Iceland's Financial Eruption: What Now?

Like Iceland's spectacular volcano eruption this year, the country's financial crisis has had far reaching economic consequences spanning national boundaries. Two years after the country's three biggest banks collapsed, bringing down the country's currency and freezing the bank accounts of half a million depositors outside of Iceland, is the country bouncing back? Can it repair contentious relationships with England and Germany? What lessons does Iceland's systemic failure present for macroeconomic policy, financial supervision and regulation, and obligations of countries to clean up messes that cross borders? How did a country with rich natural resources -from fish stocks to stable renewable energy resources to clean water- end up in such a position? With a young population, excellent health care, and a rapidly growing fully funded pension system amounting to 130% of GDP, where does Iceland go from here?

About the Speaker

Heidar Gudjonsson is an economist and the managing director of Ursus, an investment company in Zürich, Swtizerland. He is a former Managing Partner of Novator, a private investment firm managing €7Bn in public and private equity, based in London, UK.  Previously, Mr. Gudjonsson managed a trading account at Íslandsbanki London, served as Fund Manager of a Global Macro hedge fund in New York, and was Head of Institutional Sales and Trading at Íslandsbanki Reykjavik.  Mr. Gudjonsson was active in developing the markets in Iceland after capital controls were lifted in the mid 90´s.  Mr. Gudjonsson is the chairman of RSE, a pro-market think tank in Iceland, sponsored by the employers' federation and private enterprise.

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