Beck, Thorsten , Schündeln, Nicola Fuchs, S. Gürkaynak, Refet, Ichino, Andrea, (2016), “The Global Crisis special issue of Economic Policy”, Voxeu, 10 February The Global Crisis was a watershed, not just for economies around the world, but for economics as a discipline. This column introduces a special issue of Economic Policy that collects key papers on the Global Crisis published in its aftermath between 2009 and 2014. The papers chart …Read More

Alexe, Dan, (2016), “A new  “hard core” Europe: six founding nations want an “ever closer union””, New Europe, 10 February They created the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the ancestor of the EU. They are at it again. The six founding nations of the European Union on Tuesday stressed their commitment to seek an “ever closer union” ahead of next week’s summit where Britain is expected to seek a new agreement to help …Read More

Palmer, John, (2016), “Programme For A Good, More Social And Sustainable Europe”, Social Europe Journal, 10 February As the pro-European, left wing British think tank, Compass, has rightly insisted, any serious project for a “Good Europe” must first confront the multiple crises facing the European Union. Mindless austerity, the retreat by EU governments from the goals of social justice and sustainable growth together with foreign and security entanglements with the cauldron …Read More

Federico, Giovanni, Tena-Junguito, Antonio, (2016), “World trade, 1800-2015”, Voxeu, 7 February Parallels are often drawn between the Great Recession of the past decade and the economic turmoil of the interwar period. In terms of global trade, these comparisons are based on obsolete and incomplete data. This column re-estimates world trade since the beginning of the 19th century using a new database. The effect of the Great Recession on trade growth is sizeable but …Read More

Minenna, Marcelo, (2016), “The Italian Bad Bank: A Better Alternative”, Social Europe Journal, 8 February The severe financial crisis of recent years hit Eurozone industrial production; in a bank-centric currency area this resulted in tremendous growth of NPLs (non-performing loans), amounting today to €900 billion. In some countries, banking system issues arose from real estate bubbles and structured finance transactions Relevant Posts Merler, Sylvia, (2016), “Bad banks and rude awakenings: …Read More