Kowalsky, W. (2015) “Where Now For The Europe 2020 Strategy?”, Social Europe Journal, 18 March. Does the Commission take unemployment as a serious challenge? What future for the Europe 2020 strategy? A few comments on European Commission: “Results of the public consultation on the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” This new note from the European Commission is clearly a step further down the road towards …Read More
Cash, B. (2015) “With or without them“, The European Magazine, 18 March. The UK is not an obstacle to harmony and stability. It is the EU integrationists who generate economic and democratic instability. Times change. I supported our continuing British membership in the Referendum of 1975, and I voted for the Single European Act in 1986. When we joined what would become the EU, we were led to believe it …Read More
Michaels, G. & Graetz, G. (2015) “Estimating the impact of robots on productivity and employment“, VoxEU Organisation, 18 March. Robots may be dangerous not only to the action heroes of cinema, but also to the average manufacturing worker. This column analyses the effect robots have had in 14 industries across 17 developed countries from 1993 to 2007. Industrial robots increase labour productivity, total factor productivity, and wages. While they …Read More
Oberndorfer, L. (2015) “How The Troika Breaches EU Law“, Social Europe Journal, 18 March. How did the troika come about formally? In 2010 it became apparent that the European constitution offers no clues as to how one should handle financial crises on this scale. So, instead of setting in train the democratic procedures designed to do this, EU law swiftly went out of the window and one seized on …Read More
Ewing, J. (2015) “As Cyprus Recovers From Banking Crisis, Deep Scars Remain“, The New York Times: International Business, 16 March. The financial world has pretty much moved on since Cyprus was briefly the epicenter of market anxiety. Two years ago this month, the country’s banks failed en masse, A.T.M.s were rationing cash, and the integrity of the eurozone hung in the balance. But after a contentious, internationally brokered “bail-in,’’ …Read More
Marino, B. (2015) “Liberal-democratic parties face unprecedented challenges, but remain a viable part of European party systems“, LSE EUROPP, 18 March. Liberal-democratic parties have been a stable feature of several party systems in Europe, but in recent years parties such as the Liberal Democrats in the UK and the FDP in Germany have experienced significant downturns in support. Bruno Marino assesses the challenges that such parties now face in …Read More
Vives, X. (2015) “A framework for banking structural reform, VoxEU Organisation, 17 March. The 2007–08 crisis revealed regulatory failures that had allowed the shadow banking system and systemic risk to grow unchecked. This column evaluates recent proposals to reform the banking industry. Although appropriate pricing of risk should make activity restrictions redundant, there may nevertheless be complementarities between these two approaches. Ring-fencing may make banking groups more easily resolvable …Read More
Bartelsman, E., di Mauro, F. & Dorrucci, E. (2015) “Eurozone rebalancing: Are we on the right track for growth? Insights from the CompNet micro-based data“, VoxEU Organisation, 17 March. The shallow growth response to Eurozone rebalancing policies could point towards structural impediments. To uncover such impediments and design effective structural reforms, it is necessary to focus on the path from micro behaviour to macro outcomes. This column argues that …Read More
Nelson, Β., Pinter, G. & Theodoridis, K. (2015) “Does a surprise tightening of monetary policy expand shadow banking?“, VoxEU Organisation, 16 March. There has been an extensive debate over whether central banks should raise interest rates to ‘lean against’ the build-up of leverage in the financial system. This column reports on empirical evidence showing that, in contrast to the conventional view, surprise monetary contractions have tended to increase shadow …Read More
Terzi, Α. (2015) “Is the ECB sacrificing reforms on the altar of inflation? – QE and its impact on structural reform efforts“, Bruegel Institute, 13 March. Roughly one month ago, Mario Draghi announced that the European Central Bank (ECB) would activate a large programme of sovereign bonds purchases (QE), in an effort to re-anchor euro area inflation expectations to the 2% target. In the run up to that decision …Read More
