Tito Boeri, Prachi Mishra, Chris Papageorgiou and Antonio Spilimbergo, (2018), “Populism and Civil Society”, IMF, Working Paper No. 18/245, 16 November Populists claim to be the only legitimate representative of the people. Does it mean that there is no space for civil society? The issue is important because since Tocqueville (1835), associations and civil society have been recognized as a key factor in a healthy liberal democracy. We ask two …Read More

Kate Allen, (2018), “Italy stand-off raises concern of contagion”, Financial Times, 19 November What threat do Italy’s bond market woes pose to the yields on other eurozone nations’ debt? Yields on Italian bonds have been ratcheting up since a populist Eurosceptic coalition took power in May. The government’s recent agreement of an aggressive budget plan for 2019 has provided a further upward momentum, leading to a fresh sell-off of Italian debt …Read More

Ashoka Mody, (2018), “The eurozone is having an identity crisis and Italy will bear the brunt”, Prospect magazine, 16 November The eurozone is trapped in an identity crisis. Long-held claims that the euro catalyses trade within the eurozone have been discredited (here and here), leaving no tangible benefits to celebrate. In contrast, the risks of a one-size monetary policy that fits none are evident enough. The ECB’s tendency towards tight monetary …Read More

Simon Tilford, (2018), “Italy’s budget challenge to the EU”, esharp.eu, November What does the political stand-off between Italy and the European Commission over the country’s proposed 2019 budget deficit tell us about the chances of the euro ever challenging the dominance of the US dollar? After all, for many euro advocates, ending the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’ was one of the original objectives of the single currency. And is especially relevant now, given …Read More

John Springford, (2018), “Brexit deal done – now for the hard part”, Centre for European Reform, 15 November Theresa May’s Brexit deal offers some crumbs to Tory hardliners, the DUP and soft Brexiteers. But if the deal passes through parliament, a UK-EU customs union is likely. In the knowledge that no deal was not an option, Theresa May has agreed a withdrawal deal that is on the EU’s terms, but gives …Read More

Mario Draghi, (2018), “The outlook for the euro area economy”, Speech by Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, Frankfurt European Banking Congress, Frankfurt am Main, 16 November The euro area economy has now been growing for five years, and we expect the expansion to continue in the coming years. Yet we have recently seen a loss in growth momentum. In both of the last two quarterly ECB growth projections, our staff …Read More

Tobias Adrian, Fabio Natalucci, and Thomas Piontek, (2018), “Sounding the Alarm on Leveraged Lending”, IMF Blog, 15 November Regulators in the United States and Europe have taken steps in recent years to reduce banks’ exposures and to curb market excesses more broadly. The effectiveness of these steps, however, remains an open question. For example, there is evidence that these actions have contributed to a shift of activities from banks to institutional …Read More

Ines Gonscalves Raposo, (2018), “What the 2018 EBA stress tests (don’t) tell you about Italy”, Bruegel, 15 November November has brought with it the results of the European Banking Authority (EBA) 2018 EU-wide stress tests. This exercise, aimed at surveying the resilience of EU banks against adverse market developments, covers 70% of total banking-sector assets across 48 EU banks. The results of the EBA stress tests were anticipated particularly for the …Read More

Scott James and Lucia Quaglia, (2018), “The Brexit Negotiations and Financial Services: A Two‐Level Game Analysis”, The Political Quarterly This paper examines the state of the art of the Brexit negotiations in the area of financial services. It uses a two‐level game model to first explain the positions of UK and EU negotiators on the basis of the domestic constraints they face, and second, to consider the scope for final agreement …Read More