Draghi, Mario, (2015), “Monetary Policy: Past, Present and Future”, Speech at the Frankfurt European Banking Congress, 20 Νοεμβρίου Τhe ECB’s monetary policy measures have clearly worked, in fact they are probably the dominant force spurring the recovery. They have been instrumental in arresting and reversing the deflationary pressures that hit the euro a year ago. Yet growth momentum remains weak and inflation remains well below our objective of below but …Read More

Rannenberg, Ansgar, Schoder, Christian, Strasky, Jan, (2015), “The macroeconomic effects of the Eurozone’s fiscal consolidation”, Voxeu, 11 Νοεμβρίου. From 2011 to 2013, fiscal policy in the Eurozone turned progressively more restrictive. This column argues that output cost of fiscal consolidation strongly depends on presence and strength of credit constraints. With credit constraints both in the household and the firm sector, fiscal consolidation would be largely responsible for the weak growth performance during 2011-2013. …Read More

Orphanides, Athanasios, (2015), “Short-sighted monetary policy and fear of liftoff”, Voxeu, 11 Νοεμβρίου. There is generally consensus among macroeconomists that monetary policy works best when it is systematic. Following the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Bank of the US shifted from long-term, systematic policy to short-term goals targeting unemployment. This column argues that, while these were appropriate in the aftermath of the downturn, such policy accommodations have been pursued for too long …Read More

Sy, Mouhamadou, (2015), “External imbalances within the Eurozone: The Dutch disease explanation”, Voxeu, 9 Νοεμβρίου One of the most prominent features of the Eurozone Crisis has been the large current account deficit accumulated by countries at the periphery relative to those at the core (Baldwin and Giavazzi 2015). These imbalances (see Figure 1) are commonly attributed to differences in competitiveness as manifested in persistent differences in the unit labour costs, …Read More

Kaminsky, Graciela L., (2015),  “Eurozone crisis: Looking back to the future”, Voxeu, 8 Νοεμβρίου The Eurozone crisis is still lingering. While in the last couple of months only Greece’s debt woes have been at the centre of public attention, vulnerabilities across countries in the Eurozone are not fading away. Europe is still mired in a long depression, and debt problems are still escalating. While it is true that Ireland, Portugal, and …Read More