The paper analyses the Swedish experience to overcome the economic and financial crisis of the 90s. The article highlights the main preconditions and factors that contributed to the development of the crisis. Special attention is given to consideration of nature of the Swedish crisis. The problems of some industries together with compulsory destabilizing factors led to economic and financial crises. Erupted full-blown economic crisis of Sweden required an effective and complex system of anticrisis measures. As a result, the adopted program of economic activities, which included innovations in banking, currency and budgetary spheres, allowed quickly overcome the main negative tendencies in the economy.

This paper analyses the prerequisites, milestones and consequences of the economic crisis in Ireland in 2008-2013. Economic growth of the Celtic Tiger in 1987-2007 was accompanied by increasing wages and low credit rates, which ultimately led to the economic overheating. The debt crisis in Europe worsened Ireland’s situation and raised the scale of financial and economic crisis showed in a form of mortgage, fiscal and banking crisis as well as rising unemployment and immigration.

Weak potential growth has sustained as the key challenge for Belarusian economy. In 2014, there has not been any substantial progress in this field, although the government declared a start in a preparatory stage for structural reforms. In current macroeconomic policy, the regime of exchange rate targeting has been preserved as the core element.

The development of a private sector and the expansion of its role in the economy is one of the key goals repeatedly announced by the Belarusian authorities. The reforms carried out in Belarus in 2006-2014 moved the country from 106th to 57th position in the World Bank Doing Business ranking. The official statement is that reforms boosted the rapid development of business initiatives and its impact on economic development.

This policy paper deals with the phenomena of dollarization and prospects of de-dollarization policies in Belarus. During last two decades Belarus has been a highly dollarized economy. Recently, the authorities declared a campaign of de-dollarization, which, however, focuses mainly on de-dollarization of payments. Such a policy is unlikely to become effective.

This paper analyzes the concepts, causes and main characteristics of depressed regions and evaluates the level of depressed regions (districts) of Belarus using system of socio-economic indicators.