Veld, Jan in ‘t, (2016), “Public investment stimulus in surplus countries and their Eurozone spillovers”, VoxeEU, 9 September The spillover effects of a fiscal stimulus in normal times are likely to be small, at best. This column argues, however, that when interest rates are stuck at the zero lower bound and monetary policy does not offset the expansion, public investment in surplus countries could have significant positive GDP spillovers to the …Read More

Boeri, Tito, Garibaldi, Pietro, Moen, Espen (2016), “Increases in the retirement age and labour demand for youth”, VoxEU, 8 September The Eurozone’s sustained rise in youth unemployment since 2008 threatens to create a ‘lost generation’. This column presents evidence that this is, in part, an unintended consequence of pension reforms in southern Europe that locked in older workers. In future, reforms that create flexible retirement ages alongside variable pension levels could …Read More

De Groen, Willem Pieter, Gros, Daniel, (2016), “European banks under stress (tests): Which remain the most resilient?”, CEPS, 11 August The latest round of stress test conducted by the European Banking Authority  for 51 large banking groups showed huge differences in the degree to which a shock, or so-called adverse scenario, would impact different banks. We find that banks with a high exposure to sovereign risk and especially those with many non-performing loans …Read More

Musmeci, Roberto, (2016), “Key Findings from the ECRI Statistical Package 2016”, CEPS, 18 August The ECRI Statistical Package 2016, Lending to Households and Non-Financial Corporations, offers an extensive and detailed overview of the credit market in the EU, providing data on the total lending extended by monetary financial institutions (MFIs) to domestic households and non-financial corporations (NFIs) in EU countries over the 1995-2015 period. The 2016 edition also provides data on …Read More

Hinterleitner, Markus, Sager, Fritz, Thomann, Eva, (2016), “The long and winding road to fiscal adjustment: How the IMF judges austerity programmes”, LSE Europpblog, 6 September IMF judgements on whether government austerity programmes can be successfully implemented are carefully followed by international financial markets. Markus Hinterleitner, Fritz Sager and Eva Thomann analyse the way the organisation has judged the credibility of austerity programmes in 14 European countries. They find that the IMF …Read More