Daniel Gros, (2019), “Europe’s Silent Majority”, CEPS, 27 May A first key result, perhaps the most important one, of this election is that Europe’s silent majority has finally come out to vote. Opinion polls had shown for some time that confidence in the EU and its institutions had risen to sharply in recent years. But this needed to be validated by actual votes. This has now happened. Voter participation has …Read More

Peter Bofinger, (2019), “Industrial policy: is there a paradigm shift in Germany and what does this imply for Europe?”, Social Europe, 27 May A paper from the German economy minister on a national industrial policy has gone down like a lead balloon. Peter Bofinger argues it needs to be reflated—and coloured green—at a European level. Relevant Posts Catarina Midoes and Guntram B. Wolff, (2019), «Germany’s even larger than expected fiscal …Read More

Ryan Heath, (2019), “European election’s winners and losers”, Politico, 27 May This European election was not a contest with an overarching continental narrative, but a series of national and regional battles. For the two main party groupings in the European Parliament (each losing seats and with less than a quarter of the vote), there will be relief that the results were not worse than they turned out. Here’s POLITICO’s guide …Read More

Mohamed A. El-Erian, (2019), “How Inflation Could Return”, Project Syndicate, 22 May After years of low inflation, investors and policymakers have settled into a cyclical mindset that assumes advanced economies are simply suffering from insufficient aggregate demand. But they are ignoring structural factors at their peril. Relevant Posts Barry Eichengreen, (2019), «The Return of Fiscal Policy», Project Syndicate, 13 May Daniel Gros, (2019), «Who’s Afraid of Low Inflation?», Project Syndicate, 9 …Read More

Cinzia Alcidi and Daniel Gros, (2019), “Public debt and the risk premium: A dangerous doom loop”, VoxEU, 23 May The relationship between high public debt and low interest rates is once again at the forefront of debate.This column shows that countries with high debt levels pay a risk premium. This creates the potential for self-reinforcing loops of high debt and high risk premia, which can become explosive. Relevant Posts Giancarlo …Read More

Zsolt Darvas, Jan Mazza and Catarina Midoes, (2019), “How to improve European Union cohesion policy for the next decade”, Bruegel Policy Contribution No 8, May The academic literature on the effectiveness of the European Union’s cohesion policy is inconclusive: some studies find positive long-term impacts, others find positive but only short-term impacts, while others find no or even negative impacts. This range of results arises from major complicating factors, related …Read More

Angela Maddaloni and Alessandro Scopelliti, (2019), “Prudential regulation, national differences and banking stability”, ECB Research Bulletin No. 58, 23 May What role does prudential regulation play in the prevention of banking crises? Before the financial crisis there were important national differences in the implementation of the EU framework for capital regulation. This article suggests that these differences had important implications for the resilience of banks during the crisis and that, …Read More

Ana Palacio, (2019), “The EU’s Four Challenges”, Project Syndicate, 22 May Whatever the next European Parliament’s composition, the imperative will be the same: EU institutions must trade ambition for humility, focusing their attention not on their own power or status, but rather on upgrading and fortifying the project for which they claim to stand. If they fail, the road ahead will only become more perilous. Relevant Posts Gros, Daniel (2019), …Read More

Paul Ames, (2019), “Portugal’s lonely populists”, Politico, 21 May The populist wind blowing across Europe seems to have run out of puff in western Portugal. A new radical-right party pledging to shake up Portuguese politics went campaigning in the streets of this blue-collar city late last week. By the time the party leader arrived, just 14 people had turned up. Relevant Posts Karl Aiginger, (2019), «Populism: Roots, consequences, and counter …Read More

Anne-Laure Delatte, Pranav Garg and Jean Imbs, (2019), “A heterogenous response to unconventional monetary policy”, VoxEU, 21 May The ECB’s unconventional monetary policy package implemented in February 2012 changed collateral requirements. This column examines the effects in the French credit market, using data on corporate loans. Credit indeed increased after the liquidity injection, exclusively driven by supply. There was also strategic risk-taking by a group of banks, an unintentional implication …Read More