End of May, the new issue of ‘Intervention. European Journal of Economics and Economic Polices’ has been published, including a special issue on ‘Economic policies in times of financial instability and rising public debt’. It comprises articles of Sheila Dow, Jörg Bibow, Thomas Palley, Toralf Pusch, and of Jesus Ferreiro, Maribel Garcia del Valle and Carmen Gomez. The authors deal with the current economic policy approach of fiscal austerity but also shed light on the causes of the current crisis, i.e. imbalances and the banking system. Theoretical efforts are still necessary to get a grip on the effects of the current fiscal policies and to limit financial instability and macroeconomic imbalances. This is the area of research of this special issue, edited by Özlem Onaran, Sabine Reiner and me. For more information see the table of contents and the page of the journal at Metropolis Publishers.