Wolff, Guntram, (2016), “Six lessons about “real” people, Brexit, and the EU”, Bruegel, 27 Ιουνίου The result of the UK referendum on 23 June has been portrayed as a victory for “real people”. But what consequences will the result have, and how should the UK and EU now react?  “…this will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people.” These are the words …Read More

Csullag, Balazs, Danielsson, Jon, Macrae, Robert, (2016), “Why it doesn’t make sense to hold bonds”, VoxEU, 27 Ιουνίου Investor demand for bonds is very high. This column argues that this is surprising because under almost any likely inflation scenario, including central banks merely hitting their target inflation rates, bondholders suffer large losses. The beneficiaries are sovereign and corporate borrowers; the losers are pension funds, insurance companies and some foreign exchange reserve funds. Meanwhile, …Read More

Tyson, Laura, Labaye, Eric, (2016), “Jumpstarting Europe’s Economy”, Project Syndicate, 25 Ιουνίου Not so long ago, the notion of the European Central Bank handing out money to governments or directly to citizens – so-called “helicopter money” drops – would have seemed outlandish. But today a surprising number of mainstream economists and centrist politicians are endorsing the idea of monetary financing of stimulus measures in different forms.This represents a much-needed change …Read More

Baldwin, Richard et al., (2016), “Making the Eurozone more resilient: What is needed now and what can wait?”, Voxeu, 25 Ιουνίου Britain voted to leave the EU. This is terrible news for the UK, but it is also bad news for the Eurozone. Brexit opens the door to all sorts of shocks, and dangerous political snowball effects. Now is the time to shore up the Eurozone’s resiliency. The situation is …Read More

Gros, Daniel, (2016), “Negative rates and seigniorage: Turning the central bank business model upside down – the special case of the ECB”, Voxeu, 27  Ιουνίου The business of central banks used to be profitable – they issued cash and could invest the proceeds in the assets they liked. This column argues that the ECB has turned the old business model of central banks around. Today, it earns a stream of …Read More

Ryan, John, (2016), “The European Central Bank: A Central Bank Operating In A Democratic Void”, Social Europe, 24 Ιουνίου The ECB is far more independent than the Federal Reserve, whose legal status is far weaker and which is directly accountable to Congress and the government. The ECB was supposed to be like the German central bank, the Bundesbank. It has, however, failed to emulate the distinctive attributes that made the …Read More