Stiglitz, Joseph, (2013), “The Free Trade Charade”, www.project-syndicate.org, 4 Ιουλίου. Though nothing has come of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Round of global trade negotiations since they were launched almost a dozen years ago, another round of talks is in the works. But this time the negotiations will not be held on a global, multilateral basis; rather, two huge regional agreements – one transpacific, and the other transatlantic – …Read More

Bartels, Bernhard, Weder di Mauro, Beatrice, (2013), “A rating agency for Europe-A good idea?”, www.voxeu.org, 4 Ιουλίου. US-based credit-rating agencies are regularly subject to condemnation for causing or amplifying financial crises – the Eurozone Crisis in particular. Should Europe try to set up a European agency to counter this? This column discusses evidence that shows that the largest German rating agency was more aggressive than the US Big Three both …Read More

Gros, Daniel, (2013), “EZ banking union with a sovereign virus”, www.voxeu.org, 14 Ιουνίου. The doom-loop between banks and the national governments played a dominant role in the Eurozone crisis for Ireland and Cyprus. A Eurozone banking union is usually viewed as the solution. This column argues that the doom-loop cannot be undone as long as banks hold oversized amounts of their government’s debt. A simple solution would be to apply …Read More

De Grauwe, Paul, Ji, Yuemei, (2013), “Fiscal implications of the ECB’s bond-buying programme”, www.voxeu.org, 14 Ιουνίου. The monetary-fiscal policy connection is under scrutiny by the German Constitutional Court in the context of the ECB’s OMT bond-buying programme. This column argues that most analyses are deeply flawed by the misapplication of private-company default principles to the central bank. ECB bond-buying transforms public bonds into monetary base, and sovereign-default risk into inflation …Read More