Hale, G. & Obstfeld, M. (2014) “How the euro changed the pattern of international debt flows“, VoxEU Organisation, 15 May.   Large flows of bank lending from core countries in the Eurozone to the periphery lead to large financial imbalances. This column explains what motivated such financial flows. With the advent of the Eurozone, banks in core countries gained relative advantage in lending to the periphery, making such lending very …Read More

Hatcher, N. & Minford, P. (2014) “Inflation targeting vs price-level targeting: A new survey of theory and empirics“, VoxEU Organisation, 11 May.   Inflation targeting and price-level targeting have excited economists for decades. This column reviews a survey on the merits of price-level targeting. The latter could potentially help monetary policy deal with the zero bound on nominal interest rates. Such beneficial effects depend on rational expectations and a New …Read More

Belke, Α., Oeking, Α. & Setzer, R. (2014) “Exports and Capacity Constraints: A smooth transition regression model for six euro-area countries“, Economic Policy, CEPS Working Documents, 06 May.   The significant gains in export market shares made in a number of vulnerable euro-area crisis countries have not been accompanied by an appropriate improvement in price competitiveness. This paper argues that, under certain conditions, firms consider export activity as a substitute …Read More

Reinhardt, D. & Riddiough, S. (2014) “The two faces of cross-border banking flows: An investigation into the links between global risk, arms-length funding, and internal capital markets“, VoxEU Organisation, 07 May.   Cross-border funding between banks collapsed following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, but the withdrawal of funding was not uniform across countries. This column argues that the composition of cross-border bank-to-bank funding can help to explain why. Interbank funding …Read More