Kreilinger, Valentin, (2016),” National Parliaments, Surveillance mechanisms and ownership in the Euro Area“, Jacques Delors Institut , March European coordination mechanisms play an increasingly important role in EU Economic Governance. However, there is still too little acceptance of the common rules and too little compliance in member states. This study asks to what extent the role of national parliaments and national political ownership can help to explain the lack of compliance and how recent …Read More
Public debt in low-income countries: Risks and opportunities
Pienkowski, Alex , Saito, Joyce Miharu,Tambunlertchai, Suchanan, (2016), “Public debt in low-income countries: Risks and opportunities”, Voxeu, 28 March Initiatives to reduce public debt in low-income countries have made substantial progress over the past decade, but challenges remain and continue to evolve. This column presents the findings from a new IMF-World Bank report on these developments. Low-income countries have benefited from debt relief and favourable economic conditions, resulting in generally lower debt …Read More
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Estimating the Size of the Shadow Economy: Methods, Problems and Open Questions
Schneider, Friedrich, Buehn, Andreas, (2016), “Estimating the Size of the Shadow Economy: Methods, Problems and Open Questions”, IZA DP No. 9820, March This paper presents various methods for estimating the size of the shadow economy and analyzes their strengths and weaknesses. The purpose of the paper is twofold. Firstly, it demonstrates that no ideal method exists to estimate the size and development of the shadow economy. Because of its flexibility, the MIMIC …Read More
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All’s Well that Ends Well? Resolving Iceland’s Failed Banks
Baldursson, Fridrik, Mar, Portes, Richard, Thorlaksson, Eirikur, Elis, (2016), “All’s Well that Ends Well? Resolving Iceland’s Failed Banks”, Centre for Economic Policy Research, March Iceland’s capital controls were imposed in October 2008 in order to prevent massive capital flight and a complete collapse of the exchange rate. The controls have not been lifted yet; until recently this was primarily because of the risk of large outflows of domestic holdings of …Read More
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Union Debt Management
Equiza-Goni, Juan, Faraglia, Elisa, Oikonomou, Rigas, (2016), “Union Debt Management”, Centre for Economic Policy Research, March We study the role of government debt maturity in a monetary union in the absence of fiscal transfers across countries. Our key finding is that fi scal hedging is only possible when spending represents an aggregate shock in the union. In the case of idiosyncratic disturbances in spending it is not possible to target a …Read More
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Completing Maastricht 2.0 to safeguard the future of the Eurozone
Feld, Lars, P., Schmidt, Christoph, M., Schnabel, Isabel, Wieland, Volker , (2016), “Completing Maastricht 2.0 to safeguard the future of the Eurozone”, Voxeu, 23 March Economists continue to debate how to safeguard the Eurozone, with some countries exiting the Crisis and some still reeling from it. This column, by members of the German Council of Economic Experts, concludes that reforms have mostly moved the Eurozone in the direction of ‘Maastricht …Read More
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The effect of banking supervision on central bank preferences: Evidence from panel data
Chortareas, Georgios, Logothetis, Vassileios, Magkonis, Georgios, Zekente, Kalliopi-Maria, (2016), “The effect of banking supervision on central bank preferences: Evidence from panel data”, Economics Letters, Volume 140, March We examine the effects of banking supervisory architecture on central bank preferences, quantified through a recently proposed measure of central bank conservatism. Using a dynamic panel data specification we document that central banks serving both monetary policy and banking supervision functions are less inflation conservative …Read More
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Benchmarking Working Europe 2016
European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), “Benchmarking Working Europe 2016″, ETUI aisbl: Brussels, March 2016 With this year’s chosen focus – ‘prepared for the future?’ – the new edition of Benchmarking working Europe analyses the state of working Europe with the aid of a multi-level and multi-dimensional set of indicators. This 2016 edition is intended as one contribution to an assessment of what the EU current policies have achieved, or above all …Read More
The ECB Goes Rogue
Eijffinger, Sylvester, (2016), “The ECB Goes Rogue”, Project Syndicate, 18 March The European Central Bank has done it again. At its recent meeting in Frankfurt, the ECB Governing Council decided to increase bond purchases further, from €60 billion ($67 billion) to €80 billion per month, with corporate bonds now also eligible for purchase. The deposit rate, too, was reduced once again, and now stands at -0.4%. This is far from a …Read More
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Causes of the Eurozone Crisis: A nuanced view
Feld, Lars, P., Schmidt, Christoph, M., Schnabel, Isabel, Wieland, Volker, (2016), “Causes of the Eurozone Crisis: A nuanced view”, Voxeu, 22 March Hindsight is a wonderful thing. In the midst of a crisis, it is of course very hard to understand causality. This column uses the benefit of hindsight to present a nuanced view of the causes of the Eurozone Crisis as seen by members of the German Council of Economic Experts. To …Read More
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