De Grauwe, P. & Ji, Y. (2014) “Disappearing government bond spreads in the eurozone – Back to normal?“, Economic Policy, CEPS Working Documents, 14 May. Since the announcement of the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme by Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, in 2012, the government bond spreads began a strong decline. This paper finds that most of this decline is due to the positive market sentiments that the …Read More
Ozlem Onaran, Ο. & Stockhammer, Ε. (2014) “Why The Recovery Needs Wage Growth“, Social Europe Journal, 21 May. Five years after the beginning of the recession real wages in Britain are still well below their pre-crisis level. As of March 2014 real weekly earnings (deflated by the RPI) are at the level of November 2000; that is a staggering 12% below their peak in February 2008. Is that a …Read More
Ladi, S. & Tsarouhas, D. (2014) “The Politics of Austerity and Public Policy Reform in the EU, Political Studies Review, 12: 171–180. The European Union (EU) is at a critical juncture that will either trigger further integration or reinforce a mode of intergovernmental cooperation. The spread of market pressure to a growing number of states demonstrates that the crisis needs to be dealt with at the European and not just …Read More
OECD (2014) “National Accounts at a Glance 2014“, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 29 Απριλίου. This publication presents information using an “indicator” approach, focusing on cross-country comparisons; the aim being to make the accounts more accessible and informative, whilst, at the same time, taking the opportunity to present the conceptual underpinning of, and comparability issues inherent in, each of the indicators presented. The range of indicators is set …Read More
European Banking Authority (EBA) 2013 Annual Report, 21 May 2014. This edition of the EBA Annual Report takes stock of the first three years of activity of the Authority which contributed to the repair of the EU banking system by promoting the cleaning of EU banks’ balance sheets and strengthening their capital position. The EBA also brought forward its work on the development of a truly uniform set of …Read More
Manski, C. F. (2014) “Facing up to uncertainty in official economic statistics“, VoxEU Organisation, 21 May. Many economic statistics move markets when first released, and move them again when they are revised. This column suggests ways of measuring the transitory statistical uncertainty in estimates of official statistics based on incomplete data and the permanent statistical uncertainty stemming from survey non-response. Government agencies would be doing the public and policymakers …Read More
Onder, H. & Pestieau, P. (2014) “For economies, age is not just a number“, VoxEU Organisation, 20 May. The world’s population is ageing, due to both increasing longevity and decreasing fertility. This column shows that the net effect of ageing on capital accumulation (and therefore growth) depends on which of these two factors dominates, and also on the structure of the pension system. Under a pension system with defined …Read More
Burgoon, Β., Demetriades, P. & Underhill, G. R.D. (2012) “Sources and legitimacy of financial liberalization“, European Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 28, Issue 2, June 2012, pp. 147-161. This article seeks to clarify how we understand domestic and international sources of globalization and specifically how we explain financial liberalization across countries. The article also develops our understanding of the underlying legitimacy of financial liberalization. We debate e.g. Abiad and …Read More
Varoufakis, Y. (2014) “How should the ECB enact Quantitative Easing? A proposal“, Thoughts for the post-2008 World Blog, 19 May. The ECB has no alternative to enacting some form of Quantitative Easing (QE) in order to prevent deflationary expectations from setting in fully. Core inflation has already reached a level that, even according to Mr Draghi’s own pronouncements on 24th April, should have already triggered off QE. However, the ECB’s governing …Read More
Levy, M. (2014) “ECB: An appropriate monetary policy“, VoxEU Organisation, 16 May. As banks repay their loans from the Long-Term Refinancing Operation, the ECB’s balance sheet is shrinking. This column argues that, given the slow recovery and sustained low inflation, the ECB should replace its bank lending programme with quantitative easing. Buying short-term government debt would be consistent with the ECB’s inflation target, would keep the ECB’s monetary policy …Read More
