Feldstein, Martin, (2016), ” A Debt Agenda for the G7″, Project Syndicate, 23 Μαϊου On May 26-27, the heads of the Group of Seven leading industrial countries will gather in Japan to discuss common security and economic problems. A major common problem that deserves their attention is the unsustainable increase in the major developed countries’ national debt. Failure to address the explosion of government borrowing will have adverse effects on the …Read More

Manuel García Santana, Josep Pijoan-Mas, Enrique Moral-Benito, Roberto Ramos, (2016), “Growing like Spain: 1995-2007”, Voxeu, 23 Μαϊου Spain enjoyed substantial growth in the decade prior to the Global Crisis, despite declining aggregate productivity. Recent research blames the poor productivity on different forms of a ‘financial resource curse’. This column argues that resource misallocation was particularly severe due to corruption and crony capitalism. This suggests future growth will require serious political …Read More

Pia Huttl, Silvia Merler, (2016), “Sovereign bond holdings in the euro area – the impact of QE”, Bruegel, 19 Μαϊου Since the announcement of the QE programme by the European Central Bank (ECB) on 22 January 2015, national central banks have been buying government and national agency bonds. In this post we look at the effect of QE on sectoral holdings of government bonds, based on our recently updated dataset. In …Read More

Claeys, Gregory, Leandro,Alvaro, (2016), “Assessing the Juncker Plan after one year”, Bruegel, 17 Μαΐου With the Juncker Plan, the European Commission intends to support valuable risky projects by expanding the risk capacity of the EIB. But has the new European Fund for Strategic Investments really been used to finance ‘additional’ projects? Since the plan got underway, €11.2 billion worth of projects have been approved, initially by the EIB under the control of …Read More

Jong-Wha, Lee, (2016), “The Way Back for Monetary Policy”, Project Syndicate, 17 Μαΐου The central banks of major advanced economies have been navigating uncharted territory in recent years. While their use of a range of unconventional monetary-policy tools has had benefits, it has also generated significant uncertainty, without fully stabilizing the world economy. Now the time has come to head back toward more familiar policy terrain. Following the 2008 financial …Read More

Claessens, Stijn, Coleman, Nicholas, Donnelly, Michael, (2016), “Low interest rates and banks’ net interest margins”, Voxeu, 18 Μαΐου Since the Global Crisis, interest rates in many advanced economies have been low and, in many cases, are expected to remain low for some time. Low interest rates help economies recover and can enhance banks’ balance sheets and performance, but persistently low rates may also erode the profitability of banks if they are associated with …Read More

Shiller, Robert J., (2016), “Fighting the Next Global Financial Crisis”, Project Syndicate, 18 Μαΐου What do people mean when they criticize generals for “fighting the last war”? It’s not that generals ever think they will face the same weapon systems and the same battlefields. They certainly know better. The error, to the extent that the generals make it, must operate at a more subtle level. Generals are sometimes slow to get around …Read More

Minenna, Marcello, (2016), “Helicopter Money: An Old Novelty”, Social Europe, 17 Μαΐου Times have surely changed: as little as three years ago, Quantitative Easing was considered a remote hypothesis, EU inflation was well over 2% and only a small fraction of “heretics” (including myself) dared to discuss “helicopter money” as a measure to revive the economy. The “money from helicopters”, dubbed complete madness by Milton Friedman from 1948, has been a taboo …Read More

Den Haan, Wouter, Ellison, Martin, Ilzetzki. Ethan, McMahon, Michael, Reis, Ricardo, (2016), “The future role of unconventional monetary policy: CFM Survey results”, Voxeu, 17 Μαΐου Quantitative easing is called ‘unconventional monetary policy’, but monetary policy could get much more ‘unconventional’. Things like ‘helicopter money’, abolishing currency and negative nominal interest rates have entered the public policy debate. This column reports the views of leading experts on the future role of unconventional monetary policy, and what might …Read More

Cohen-Setton, Jérémie, (2016), “Regulation and growth”, Bruegel, 16 Μαΐου Noah Smith writes that it’s easy to look around and find examples of regulations that protect incumbent businesses at the expense of the consumer — for example, the laws that forbid car companies from selling directly to consumers, creating a vast industry of middlemen. You can also find clear examples of careless bureaucratic overreach and inertia, like the total ban on sonic …Read More