Stefanie Walter is Full Professor of International Relations and Political Economy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich. She previously held positions as Fritz-Thyssen Fellow at Harvard University and as Junior Professor for International and Comparative Political Economy at the University of Heidelberg. Her research concentrates on the fields of international and comparative political economy, with a particular focus on how distributional conflicts, policy preferences, and institutions affect economic policy outcomes. Her work has been published in Economics and Politics, the European Journal of Political Research, International Organization, and International Studies. She received her PhD in Political Science from ETH Zurich.

• 1. Introduction; 2. The distribution of vulnerabilities: purchasing power, balance sheets, and exchange-rate policy preferences; 3. Voters' direct vulnerability to adjustment. European voters in the 2008/9 global economic and financial crisis; 4. Indirect vulnerability to adjustment. The determinants of employers' monetary and exchange rate policy preferences; 5. Interests, elections, and policy makers' incentives to adjust; 6. The politics of adjustment in the Asian financial crisis, 1997/8; 7. Adjustment in Eastern Europe during the first phase of the global financial and economic crisis, 2008–10; 8. Conclusions.

Stefanie Walter is Full Professor of International Relations and Political Economy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich. She previously held positions as Fritz-Thyssen Fellow at Harvard University and as Junior Professor for International and Comparative Political Economy at the University of Heidelberg. Her research concentrates on the fields of international and comparative political economy, with a particular focus on how distributional conflicts, policy preferences, and institutions affect economic policy outcomes. Her work has been published in Economics and Politics, the European Journal of Political Research, International Organization, and International Studies. She received her PhD in Political Science from ETH Zurich.

• 1. Introduction; 2. The distribution of vulnerabilities: purchasing power, balance sheets, and exchange-rate policy preferences; 3. Voters' direct vulnerability to adjustment. European voters in the 2008/9 global economic and financial crisis; 4. Indirect vulnerability to adjustment. The determinants of employers' monetary and exchange rate policy preferences; 5. Interests, elections, and policy makers' incentives to adjust; 6. The politics of adjustment in the Asian financial crisis, 1997/8; 7. Adjustment in Eastern Europe during the first phase of the global financial and economic crisis, 2008–10; 8. Conclusions.