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

Moro, Andrea, Maresch, Daniela, Ferrando, Annalisa, Udell, Gregory F., (2017),  “Does employment protection legislation affect credit access? Evidence from Europe”, ECB, Μάιος We investigate the impact of employment protection on firms’ credit access by looking at both credit obtained from banks and firms’ decision to apply for a loan. We find that greater flexibility in structuring the employees’ working hours and in dismissing employees increases the probability that firms obtain …Read More

Wolff, Guntram B., (2017), “What could a euro-area finance minister mean?”, Bruegel, 17 Μαΐου With the election of Emmanuel Macron as president of France, the idea of a euro-area treasury and finance minister is back in the limelight. The election programme of Emmanuel Macron calls for “a budget for the euro area voted by a euro-area parliament and executed by a euro-area finance minister” with the aim to “be able to …Read More