After the Berlin Wall tells the inside story of an international
financial institution, the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD), created in the aftermath of communism to help the
countries of central and eastern Europe transition towards open
market-oriented democratic economies.
The first volume of a history in two parts, After the Berlin Wall
charts the EBRD's life from a fledgling high-risk start-up investing in
former socialist countries from 1991 to become an established member of
the international financial community, which (as of April 2020) operates
in almost 40 countries across three continents.
This volume describes the multilateral negotiations that created this
cosmopolitan institution with a 'European character' and the emergence
of the EBRD's unique business model: a focus on the private sector and a
mission to deliver development impact with sustainable financial
returns. The author recounts the challenges that 'transition' countries
faced in moving from a defunct to a functioning economic system and maps
the EBRD's response to critical events, from the dissolution of the
Soviet Union, to the safe confinement of the Chernobyl disaster site,
the debt default in Russia and the onset of the global financial crisis
in 2008.