Darvas, Zsolt, (2019), “Uncertainty over output gap and structural-balance estimates remains elevated“, Bruegel.org, June The EU fiscal framework strongly relies on the structural budget balance indicator, which aims to measure the ‘underlying’ position of the budget. But this indicator is not observed, only estimations can be made. This post shows that estimates of the European Commission, the IMF, the OECD and national governments widely differ from each other and all …Read More

Papadia, Francesco, (2019),”GNI-per-head rankings: The sad stories of Greece and Italy“, Bruegel.org , June No other country lost as many positions as Greece and Italy in the rankings of European countries by Gross National Income per head, between 1990 and 2017. The tentative conclusion here is that more complex, country-specific stories – beyond the euro, or the specific euro-area fiscal rules – are needed to explain these individual performances. Σχετικές …Read More

Gilbert, Mark, (2019), “How to Build a European Banking Champion“, Bloomberg Opinion, June Earlier this month, Elisa Martinuzzi suggested that merging Deutsche Bank AG and UBS Group AG would, on paper at least, create a European banking champion. She concluded, though, that the regulatory obstacles to such a deal would probably be insurmountable. But there is a three-way combination that could create a regional lender with the heft to take on …Read More

Eurostat, (2019), “Euro area job vacancy rate at 2.3%” ,  NewsRelease – EuroIndicators 96  , June The job vacancy rate in the euro area (EA19) was 2.3% in the first quarter of 2019, stable compared with the previous quarter and up from 2.1% in the first quarter of 2018, according to figures published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In the EU28, the job vacancy rate was 2.4% …Read More

Eurostat, (2019),  “Annual inflation down to 1.2% in the euro area“, NewsRelease – EuroIndicators 97, June The euro area annual inflation rate was 1.2% in May 2019, down from 1.7% in April 2019. A year earlier, the rate was 2.0%. European Union annual inflation was 1.6% in May 2019, down from 1.9% in April 2019. A year earlier, the rate was 2.0%. The lowest annual rates were registered in Cyprus , …Read More

Vickers, John (2019), “The case for market-based stress tests“, VOX  CEPR Policy Portal, June The stability of the financial system depends on the capital of banks and other financial institutions. But the measurement of bank capital depends on regulatory accounting methods, which, as events a decade ago showed dramatically, do not always reflect economic realities in a timely fashion. This column argues that market-based measures should play a greater role in …Read More

Dendrinou, Victoria, Varvitsioti, Eleni (2019), “The EU’s Secret Plan for a Catastrophic Grexit“, Bloomberg, June The top-secret plan had been filed away in 2012, the previous time Greece had teetered on the edge of default. It was code-named “Croatia’s Accession to the European Union” to disguise that it was a doomsday scenario for the country farther south. Any hint it even existed would have sent Greece deeper into crisis, spooked financial …Read More

Huizing, Harry and Laeven Luc (2019), “The procyclicality of banking in the euro area“, VOX CEPR Policy Portal, Mάιος A high procyclicality of banks’ loan loss provisioning is undesirable from a financial stability perspective, as it implies that bank capitalisations are more negatively affected at the trough of the business cycle, exactly when capital market conditions for banks are at their weakest. This column finds that provisioning procyclicality in the euro …Read More