Aziz, J. (2014) “Is It Time To End Fractional Reserve Banking?“, Pieria Network, 12 Μαΐου. The moment you realize that the financial system has an inherent fragility at its heart — that people can simply lose confidence in the system, withdraw their deposits en mass, and because banks only keep a fraction of their deposits on hand cause a liquidity crisis where the bank runs out of money — …Read More
Tiffin, Α. (2014) “European Productivity, Innovation and Competitiveness: The Case of Italy“, IMF Working Paper, Strategy,Policy and Review Department, Μάιος. In Italy, price-based competitiveness measures are not always an accurate predictor of trade outcomes. This paper offers a more comprehensive assessment of Italian competitiveness, focusing on the role of innovation and the evolution of Italy’s export market share. Overall, Italy maintains a high-quality export mix, and the adaptability of …Read More
Hatcher, N. & Minford, P. (2014) “Inflation targeting vs price-level targeting: A new survey of theory and empirics“, VoxEU Organisation, 11 Μαΐου. Inflation targeting and price-level targeting have excited economists for decades. This column reviews a survey on the merits of price-level targeting. The latter could potentially help monetary policy deal with the zero bound on nominal interest rates. Such beneficial effects depend on rational expectations and a New …Read More
Minas, C., Jacobson, D., Antoniou, E. & McMullan, C. (2014) “Welfare regime, welfare pillar and southern Europe“, Journal of European Social Policy, Vol. 24, No. 2, Μάιος, σσ.135-149. This paper uses a variety of methods of statistical cluster analysis to examine how EU countries (other than the new East European members) are grouped. Using the four dimensions, family, market vs state, religion and clientelism, the results of the analysis …Read More
Whelan, C., Nolan, B. & Maître, B. (2014) “Multidimensional poverty measurement in Europe: An application of the adjusted headcount approach“, Journal of European Social Policy, Vol. 25, No. 2, 183-197, Μάιος. As awareness of the limitations of relying solely on income to measure poverty has become more widespread, attention has been increasingly focused on multi-dimensional approaches, to the point where the European Union (EU) has adopted a multidimensional poverty …Read More
Leonard, M. & Torreblanca, I. (2014) “The Eurosceptic Surge and How to Respond to It“, Policy Brief, European Council on Foreign Relations, 08 Μαΐου. Pollsters are predicting a Eurosceptic surge at the European elections, which take place at a time when the European Union is going through the worst economic and political crisis in its history. Although the main pro-European forces want to turn this election into a left–right …Read More
Belke, Α., Oeking, Α. & Setzer, R. (2014) “Exports and Capacity Constraints: A smooth transition regression model for six euro-area countries“, Economic Policy, CEPS Working Documents, 06 Μαΐου. The significant gains in export market shares made in a number of vulnerable euro-area crisis countries have not been accompanied by an appropriate improvement in price competitiveness. This paper argues that, under certain conditions, firms consider export activity as a substitute …Read More
Castro-Conde, C. A. (2014) “The positions of European political parties offer a clear choice to voters over what type of Europe they would like to see“, LSE EUROPP, 08 Μαΐου European Parliament elections have often been criticised from the perspective that they fail to engage voters. Cristina Ares Castro-Conde presents a comprehensive comparison of the positions contained within the manifestos of all of the main European political parties. She …Read More
Onaran, O. & Stockhammer, E. (2014) “Raising wages should be a key component of economic growth strategies across the world“, LSE EUROPP, 07 Μαΐου. What impact do wages have on economic growth? Ozlem Onaran and Engelbert Stockhammer write that the size of wages as a percentage of state GDP has been falling across the world. They argue that this poses a problem because the negative impact on aggregate …Read More
Van Hooren, F., Kaasch, A. & Starke, P. (2014) “The shock routine: economic crisis and the nature of social policy responses“, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 21 Issue 4, Taylor and Francis Online, 21 Μαρτίου. The idea that moments of crisis form opportunities for fundamental policy change is widespread in political science and public policy. It is usually associated with historical institutionalism and the notion of ‘critical junctures’. …Read More
