Grevi, Giovanni, (2016), “Europe: a question of survival”, European Policy Centre, 27 June The choice of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union (EU) poses a fundamental question that can no longer be avoided – that of the survival of European integration. Chancellor Merkel rightly defined Brexit as a “watershed” moment for Europe. She omitted, however, that beyond this turning point lies the crossroads between a spiral of political and …Read More

Battaglini, Marco, Nunnari, Salvatore, Palfrey, Thomas R, (2016), “The Political Economy of Public Debt: A Laboratory Study”, Centre for Economic Policy Research, June This paper reports the results from a laboratory experiment designed to study political distortions in the accumulation of public debt. A legislature bargains over the levels of a public good and of district specific transfers in two periods. The legislature can issue or purchase risk-free bonds in the first period and …Read More

Olivier, Blanchard, (2016), “How the Eurozone Can Be Strengthened After Brexit”, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 27 June exit raises fundamental questions, about the course of history, the nature of relations between European countries, the rise of populists, and the devalued status of politicians. These will be analyzed at length for months and years to come. Meanwhile, Europe must continue to function. Both the European Union and eurozone projects have to …Read More

Wolff, Guntram, (2016), “Six lessons about “real” people, Brexit, and the EU”, Bruegel, 27 June 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 June 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 June 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 June 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  June 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