Mink, M. & de Haan, J. (2014) “Spillovers from systemic bank defaults“, VoxEU Organisation, 24 Μαΐου.   To date, much uncertainty exists about how large the spillovers would be from the default of a systemically important bank. This column shows evidence that the market values of US and EU banks hardly respond to changes in the default risk of banks that the Financial Stability Board considers globally systemically important (G-SIBs). …Read More

Ladi, S. & Tsarouhas, D. (2014) “The Politics of Austerity and Public Policy Reform in the EU, Political Studies Review, 12: 171–180.   The European Union (EU) is at a critical juncture that will either trigger further integration or reinforce a mode of intergovernmental cooperation. The spread of market pressure to a growing number of states demonstrates that the crisis needs to be dealt with at the European and not just …Read More

Manski, C. F. (2014) “Facing up to uncertainty in official economic statistics“, VoxEU Organisation, 21 Μαΐου.   Many economic statistics move markets when first released, and move them again when they are revised. This column suggests ways of measuring the transitory statistical uncertainty in estimates of official statistics based on incomplete data and the permanent statistical uncertainty stemming from survey non-response. Government agencies would be doing the public and policymakers …Read More

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

Schadler, S. (2014) “The IMF’s preferred creditor status: Questions after the Eurozone crisis”, VoxEU Organisation, 28 Απριλίου.   The IMF has had a preferred creditor status throughout the history of its lending. This implies that borrowing countries are expected to give priority to meeting their obligations to the IMF over other creditors. This column reviews the onset of this preferred status, its purpose, and the way it changed after the …Read More

Fatas, A. (2014) “The Price is Wrong”, Antonio Fatas on the Global Economy Blog, 14 Απριλίου.   The Euro area inflation came lower than expected in March and this has raised concerns about deflation (or “lowflation” as labelled by the IMF). In today’s Financial Times, Jurgen Stark, a former ECB board member argues that deflation or low inflation is not a problem. One of his arguments is that there are …Read More

Sakalis, A. (2014) “A black cloud over the EU?”, Euro Crisis in the Press, LSE, 14 Απριλίου.   The newly announced Le Pen-Wilders alliance in the European parliament has re-ignited speculation about the rise of the far-right in Europe. What can we expect from this new EU supergroup? The recent success of the Front National in French local elections, as well as the announcement of a Le Pen-Wilders alliance in …Read More