Hi Jason,
Thanks for your contribution, very helpful !
I am currently doing my master thesis on the eurozone crisis and its potential link with total factor productivity and there are some links I don't get, so maybe you can help :)

1) there is a broad consensus on the fact that the eurozone crisis started with a financial crisis imported from the United States: governments had to rescue the banks, which raised the level of public debt ... to levels judged too high by the financial markets.
Those financial markets started to doubt about the sustainibility of the sovereign debt of various countries and a vicious circle started (self-fulfilling prophecy, diabolic loop, etc).

= What I would like to know about those public debts is "where do they come from" ? are they mostly the result of the bank bailouts (I guess it isn't) ?
If no, then what?
i)Does it have a link with the loss of competitiveness of the periphery ? There is a clear relation between loss of competitiveness and increasing external imbalances, but I miss the link with the PUBLIC debt. Is there any, and if yes, what are the channels through which it operates?

ii) Or has is to do with the fact that governments in the periphery especially spend too much on their civil servants

iii) ?
So far I haven't found literature on the origins of that high level of public debt. I mean, I know the accession to the euro facilitated the borrowings, but WHY did they borrow so much?

2) Do you think there is a link between a loss of productivity and the current account imbalances ? If yes, do you have ideas of possible channels ?

Thanks a lot for the reading of my comment,
I am looking forward on your answer !

Best regards,

Romain