Steve Coulter, (2019), “Restoring trust in Europe—wage rises and workplace democracy”, Social Europe, 27 March Europe’s economy has been expanding for six straight years and more people are getting jobs. The crisis is fading from memory and austerity is easing off. So why aren’t Europeans happier? And why, in all but three countries surveyed recently by Eurobarometer (Figure 1), is trust in the European Union below what it was before …Read More

Giuseppe Ferrero, Mario Pietrunti and Andrea Tiseno, (2019), “Monetary policy in times of uncertainty: a reappraisal of the Brainard principle”, VoxEU, 21 March Dealing with uncertainty about the state of the economy is one of the main challenges facing monetary policymakers. In recent years there has been an extensive debate on the value of some of the deep parameters driving the economy, such as the natural rate of interest and …Read More

Lindsay Aqui, (2019), “How the story of Britain and Europe began: Was Brexit inevitable?”, LSE EUROPP, 26 March How did the story of Britain and Europe begin? Was Brexit inevitable? In this blog, Lindsay Aqui attempts to answer these and other questions as the UK’s protracted departure from the European Union enters yet another phase. Relevant Posts Josh De Lyon and Swati Dhingra, (2019), «UK economy since the Brexit vote: …Read More

Josh De Lyon and Swati Dhingra, (2019), “UK economy since the Brexit vote: slower GDP growth, lower productivity, and a weaker pound”, LSE EUROPP, 22 March Evidence of the UK’s economic performance since the EU Referendum is clear: GDP growth has slowed down, productivity has suffered, the pound has depreciated and purchasing power has gone down, and investments have declined. In this blog, Josh De Lyon and Swati Dhingra argue …Read More

Jan Priewe, (2019), “Could Europe face the next recession?”, Social Europe, 19 March That the eurozone is incomplete is an assessment shared by almost all economists and economic policy-makers. The prevailing opinion is that the European banking union is the most important missing part, in connection with a capital-markets union. A recent book, Still Time to Save the Euro, published by Social Europe, addresses six key economic problems which are …Read More

Carlo Alcaraz,  Stijn Claessens, Gabriel Cuadra, David Marques-Ibanez and Horacio Sapriza, (2019), “Whatever it takes: what’s the impact of a major nonconventional monetary policy intervention?”, ECB Working Paper Series No2249, March We assess how a major, unconventional central bank intervention, Draghi’s “whatever it takes” speech, affected lending conditions. Similar to other large interventions, it responded to adverse financial and macroeconomic developments that also influenced the supply and demand for credit. …Read More

Alvaro Leandro and Jeromin Zettelmeyer, (2019), “Ηow Worrying Is the Recent Downgrading of German Growth Forecasts?”, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 15 March Growth in Germany has been very weak since the third quarter of 2018. The reason is a combination of one-off factors, including a drought and a new EU emissions testing procedure, which held back car sales last year, as well as cooling demand for German exports. As …Read More

Adam Tooze, (2019), “What are central banks for?”, Social Europe, 18 March The eurozone remains mired in unemployment while the European Central Bank targets only inflation. Adam Tooze begins a series of Social Europe columns by explaining the hidden history of the Fed’s more successful dual mandate. Relevant Posts Gregory Claeys, Maria Demertzis and Jan Mazzaa, (2018), «Monetary policy framework for the European Central Bank to deal with uncertainty», Bruegel, …Read More