IMF, (2016), “Euro Area At The Crossroads No Time For Complacency”, 8 Ιουλίου Recovery in the euro area has strengthened, but the medium-term outlook remains weak and is endangered by a lack of collective action to address common challenges. Members must rebuild faith in the monetary union, says the IMF in its latest review of the currency union. “The euro area is at a critical juncture. The progress made during the …Read More
Ongena, Steven, Popov, Alexander, Van Horen, Neeltje, (2016), “The invisible hand of the government: “Moral suasion” during the European sovereign debt crisis”, European Central Bank, Working papers 1937, Ιούλιος Banks’ rapidly increasing balance sheet exposures to domestic sovereign debt during the euro area sovereign debt crisis led both academics and policy makers to speculate that this development was at least partly the result of domestic sovereigns putting pressure on some banks to extend material support …Read More
Foremny, Dirk, Solé-Ollé, Albert, (2016), “Who’s Coming to the Rescue? Revenue-Sharing Slumps and Implicit Bailouts During the Great Recession”, ZEW, Discussion Paper No. 16-049, Μάιος Local governments across the globe experienced high levels of fiscal stress during the last recession (Ter-Minassian and Fedelino, 2010). The causes of these fiscal imbalances were twofold. First, many local governments had to deal with a reduction in their own-source revenues, based as they were on taxes (most notably, …Read More
Orphanides, Athanasios, (2016), “Fiscal Implications of Central Bank Balance Sheet Policies”, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Ιούλιος Under ordinary circumstances, the fiscal implications of central bank policies tend to be seen as relatively minor and escape close scrutiny. The global financial crisis of 2008, however, demanded an extraordinary response by central banks which brought to light the immense power of central bank balance sheet policies as well as their major …Read More
Gazzani, Andrea, (2016), “News and noise in the housing market”, European Central Bank, Working Papers 1933/ Ιούλιος During the last decades, the housing market has been recognized as a powerful source of instability for many economies around the world. The most striking examples are the US, Spain and Ireland. By taking a pure accounting view on US data, housing contributes to GDP in two basic ways: through private residential investment, …Read More
Hinterleitner, Markus, Sager, Fritz, Thomann, Eva, (2016), “The politics of external approval: Explaining the IMF’s evaluation of austerity programmes”, Wiley Online Library, 21 Μαρτίου During the European debt crisis, numerous states launched austerity programmes. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) evaluates and forecasts the likelihood of member states’ success in implementing these programmes. Although IMF evaluations influence country risk perceptions on capital markets, little is known about their reasoning. This article …Read More
Collard, Fabrice, Habib, Michel, Rochet, Jean-Charles, (2016), “The reluctant defaulter: A tale of high government debt”, Voxeu, 13 Ιουλίου Since the Global Crisis, sovereign debt levels have exploded in many OECD countries. This column presents a new measure of government debt – maximum sustainable debt. This measure takes account of the fact that a shortfall in growth naturally increases the probability of default, while allowing for the possibility of rollover. Applications to recent data suggest …Read More
Blanton, Robert G., Peksen, Dursun, (2016), “Economic liberalisation, market institutions and labour rights”, European Journal of Political Research, 29 Φεβρουαρίου What effect do pro-market economic policies have on labour rights? Despite significant debate in policy and academic circles about the consequences of economic liberalisation, little is known about the labour rights effects of pro-market policies. Extant literature has focused only on the possible outcomes of market-liberalising policies, such as trade and investment …Read More
Arora, Vivek, (2016), “Five Lessons from a Review of Recent Crisis Programs”, iMFdirect, 11 Ιουλίου IMF lending increased to unprecedented levels in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. As difficulties emerged, we extended financial support to countries across the world—in the euro area, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and emerging economies in Europe. The IMF tried to draw lessons in real time as the crisis evolved in order to adapt our …Read More
Ricardo Reis, (2016), “QE in the future: the central bank’s balance sheet in a fiscal crisis”, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Ιούλιος Analysis of quantitative easing (QE) typically focus on the recent past studying the policy’s effectiveness during a financial crisis when nominal interest rates are zero. This paper examines instead the usefulness of QE in a future fiscal crisis, modeled as a situation where the fiscal outlook is inconsistent with …Read More
