Darvas, Zsolt, Pisani-Ferry, Jean and Wolff, Guntram, (2013), “Europe’s growth problem (and what to do about it)”, Bruegel – The Brussels-based think tank, 12 Απριλίου. The issue: The European Union’s pre-crisis growth performance was disappointing enough, but the performance has been even more dismal since the onset of the crisis. Weak growth is undermining private and public deleveraging,and is fuelling continued banking fragility. Persistently high unemployment is eroding skills, discouraging …Read More

Open Europe Team, (2013), “Who’s next in line in the eurozone crisis? Portugal and Slovenia are the prime candidates”, Open Europe, 11 Απριλίου. The troubles in Cyprus have set off a new examination of the health of the eurozone, with a particular focus on which country might be next in line for a bailout and the extent to which shareholders and depositors will take losses when banks fail (bail-ins). Much …Read More

Bibow, Jorg, (2013), “On the Franco-German Euro Contradiction and Ultimate Euro Battleground” , Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Working Paper, N.762. Highlighting that France and Germany held largely contradicting hopes and aspirations for Europe’s common currency, this paper analyzes how the resulting euro contradiction conditioned the ongoing euro crisis as well as current strategies to resolve it. While Germany generally prevailed in hammering out the design of the euro policy …Read More

Blanchard, Olivier, Jaumotte, Florence and Loungani, Prakash, (2013), “Labor Market Policies and IMF Advice in Advanced Economies during the Great Recession”, International Monetary Fund, Staff Discussion Note, N.13/02. This paper does two things. First, it articulates what are the main implications of theoretical and empirical research for design of labor market policies and labor market institutions. Second, in this light, the paper analyzes the IMF’s labor market recommendations since the …Read More

Gros, Daniel, (2013), “Banking Union with a Sovereign Virus: The self-serving regulatory treatment of sovereign debt in the euro area”, The Centre for European Policy Studies, N.289. In many eurozone countries, domestic banks often hold more than 20% of domestic public debt, which is an unsatisfactory situation given that banks are highly leveraged and that sovereign debt is inherently subject to default risk within the euro area. This paper by …Read More

Darvas, Zsolt, Guntram, Wolff, “Should non-euro area countries join the single supervisory mechanism?”, Bruegel Policy Contribution, Issue 2013/06. Irrespective of the euro crisis, a European banking union makes sense, including for non-euro area countries, because of the extent of European Union financial integration. The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is the first element of the banking union. From the point of view of non-euro countries, the draft SSM regulation as amended …Read More

Alogoskoufis, George, (2013), “Macroeconomics and Politics in the Accumulation of Greece’s Debt: An econometric investigation, 1975-2009“, The Hellenic Observatory European Institute London School of Economics & Political Science. This paper focuses on an econometric investigation of the macroeconomic and political factors that contributed to Greece’s excessive debt accumulation and its failure to adequately address its fiscal imbalances, from the restoration of democracy in 1974 till the crisis of 2009. The …Read More

Darvas, Zsolt, (2013), ‘Can Europe recover without credit?’, Bruegel Policy Contribution, Issue 2013/13. Data from 135 countries covering five decades suggests that creditless recoveries, in which the stock of real credit does not return to the pre-crisis level for three years after the GDP trough, are not rare and are characterised by remarkable real GDP growth rates: 4.7 percent per year in middle-income countries and 3.2 percent per year in …Read More

Veron, Nicolas, Wolff, Guntram B., (2013), “From Supervision to Resolution: Next Steps on the Road to European Banking Union”, The Peterson Institute for International Economics. Special resolution regimes for banks and systemically important financial institutions are an attractive alternative to both insolvency and public bailouts and have a compelling track record. The European Council has outlined a policy sequence of three successive steps including the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the …Read More