Moury, Catherine, Standring, Adam, (2017), “How Portugal’s leaders exploited the bail out to pass measures they already supported”, EUROPP, Μάιος We recently conducted both an analysis of official statements and interviews with many of the main political actors that were in power during the sovereign debt crisis in Portugal (2010-2015). Our research highlights that both the crisis and the bailout made the executive stronger in relation to other domestic actors. Consequently, when …Read More

Douglas, Roger, MacCulloch, Robert, (2017), “Welfare: Savings not taxation”, Vox Eu, 25 Μαΐου Across many countries, the cost of publicly funded healthcare, retirement, and other welfare programmes are forecast to put rising pressure on government budgets. As a result, many nations are seeking to reform their welfare states so that costs to the government can be reduced, quality of outcomes increased, and the plight of low- and middle-income earners improved. Regrettably …Read More

Brosens, Teunis, (2017), “Financial integration in the Eurozone should not be a tough sell”, Vox Eu, 24 Μαΐου Much progress has been made in recent years to improve the financial integration of the Eurozone. Banking union is the most important example. Increasing stability is an important objective. But let us not forget that an integrated financial market also helps European consumers and companies in a more direct way. A fully equipped …Read More

Watt, Andrew, Andor, László, (2017), “Populism, Austerity And Democratic Deficit”, Social Europe, 23 Μαΐου Critiques of the European Union target a political problem – the so-called democratic deficit – and an economic (and social) one: austerity, sometimes subsumed under the broader heading of neoliberalism. It is also often claimed or simply assumed that there is a connection between the two: the first being the main cause of the second. Bureaucrats …Read More

Véron, Nicolas, (2017), “Governance and Ownership of Significant Euro Area Banks”, PIIE, Μάιος European policymakers and analysts often appear to assume that most euro area banks are publicly listed companies with ownership scattered among many institutional investors, a structure in which no single shareholder has controlling influence and that allows for considerable flexibility to raise capital when needed. Such an ownership structure is indeed prevalent among banks in advanced countries such …Read More

Bentolila, Samuel, Dolado , Juan, (2017), “Social Europe revisited”, Vox Eu, 23 Μαΐου Almost 20 years ago, the eighth CEPR Monitoring European Integration report explored the interactions between social policy, broadly interpreted, and economic integration in Europe. The experience of the past enlargement of the European Community to include Greece, Portugal, and Spain from the early to the mid-1980s provided Social Europe: One for All? (Bean, Bentolila, Bertola, and Dolado, 1998) …Read More