Jespersen, Jesper, (2016), “The Euro: A Political Failure and an Economic Disaster”, International Journal of Political Economy, 29 April Alain Parguez is right when he claims that the “euro” is a political failure and an economic disaster, in which French politicians and economists seem to have played a significant role. France’s elite envisaged being a dominant political power on the Continent after the two military defeats of Germany in 1918 and 1945. …Read More

Chortareas, Georgios, Mavrodimitrakis, Christos, (2016), “Strategic fiscal policies and leadership in a monetary union”, European Journal of Political Economy, 30 Αpril We consider the strategic interactions between fiscal and monetary policies in a monetary union when a fiscal authority enjoys a strategic advantage. In particular we depart from the standard literature on strategic interactions in monetary unions in that we solve a three-stage game, where the two national fiscal authorities do not play simultaneously. …Read More

Krampf, Arie, (2016),  “From transparency to ambiguity: the impact of the ECB’s unconventional policies on the EMU”, Journal of European Integration, 17 March There is no disagreement that during the crisis the EMU has gone through an institutional change. However, there is no agreement concerning the type of change and its drivers. This article focuses on the impact of the ECB’s unconventional policies on the EMU at large. The article draws on …Read More

Storm, Servaas, Naastepad, C.W.M., (2016), “Myths, Mix-ups, and Mishandlings: Understanding the Eurozone Crisis”, International Journal of Political Economy, 29 Αpril The Eurozone crisis has been wrongly interpreted as either a crisis of fiscal profligacy or of deteriorating unit-labor cost competitiveness (caused by rigid labor markets), or a combination of both. Based on these diagnoses, crisis countries have been treated with the bitter medicines of fiscal austerity, wage reductions, and labor market deregulation—all in the …Read More

Boissay, Frédéric, Collard, Fabrice, Smets, Frank, (2016), “Booms and Banking Crises”, Journal of Political Economy, 4 Μarch Banking crises are rare events that break out in the midst of credit-intensive booms and bring about deep and long-lasting recessions. This paper presents a textbook dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to explain these phenomena. The model features a nontrivial banking sector, where bank heterogeneity gives rise to an interbank market. Moral hazard and asymmetric information in this …Read More

Parguez, Alain, (2016), “Economic Theories of Social Order and the Origins of the Euro”, International Journal of Political Economy, 29 April This paper explores how the Euro project became a reality as a result of conflicting political and economic forces. The idea was born in the interwar period in France, among a circle of Traditionalist elites and conservative intellectuals, politicians, and businessmen. They dreamed of restoring an allegedly genuine social order that …Read More

Zimmermann, Hubert, (2016), “The euro trilemma, or: how the Eurozone fell into a neofunctionalist legitimacy trap”, Journal of European Integration, 19 February The Euro-Crisis can be explained by the calamitous interaction of two neofunctionalist logics operating in the Eurozone since its inception: first, a logic of irreversible enlargement, and second, a logic of continuous deepening. The logic of enlargement perpetuates greater divergence among the members of the Eurozone, not only with respect …Read More

Zaporozhets, Vera, García-Valiñas, María, Kurz, Sascha, (2016), “Key drivers of EU budget allocation: Does power matter?”, European Journal of Political Economy, Μay We examine the determinants of the EU budget allocation among Member States. In line with the analysis by Kauppi and Widgrén (2004) we test two alternative explanations: political power vs. “needs view” . To do so, we extend the original data set (1976–2001) up to 2012 and introduce alternative econometric specifications. We …Read More

Baumgarten, Daniel, Kvasnicka, Michael, (2016), “Temporary Agency Work and the Great Recession”, IZA DP No 9913, April 2016 We investigate with German data how the use of temporary agency work has helped establishments to manage the economic and financial crisis in 2008/09. We examine the (regular) workforce development, use of short-time work, and business performance of establishments that made differential use of temporary agency work prior to the crisis. Overall, our results …Read More