Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

The result was that Greece and Portugal could borrow on terms that were better than ever before in their history, and one might have expected this to produce a huge surge in new public borrowing. Reading some commentary on the eurozone crisis, one might imagine that this was indeed what happened.30 But, despite the unprecedentedly low interest rates, there was, in fact, no public debt boom after 2001. Certain countries borrowed more than others. But overall, the Maastricht rules limiting deficits exercised an effective restraint, especially when one considers the inducement to borrow provided by the convergence of yields.

Wouldnt have guessed this