Bibow, Jorg, (2013), “On the Franco-German Euro Contradiction and Ultimate Euro Battleground” , Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Working Paper, N.762. Highlighting that France and Germany held largely contradicting hopes and aspirations for Europe’s common currency, this paper analyzes how the resulting euro contradiction conditioned the ongoing euro crisis as well as current strategies to resolve it. While Germany generally prevailed in hammering out the design of the euro policy …Read More

Blanchard, Olivier, Jaumotte, Florence and Loungani, Prakash, (2013), “Labor Market Policies and IMF Advice in Advanced Economies during the Great Recession”, International Monetary Fund, Staff Discussion Note, N.13/02. This paper does two things. First, it articulates what are the main implications of theoretical and empirical research for design of labor market policies and labor market institutions. Second, in this light, the paper analyzes the IMF’s labor market recommendations since the …Read More

Gros, Daniel, (2013), “Banking Union with a Sovereign Virus: The self-serving regulatory treatment of sovereign debt in the euro area”, The Centre for European Policy Studies, N.289. In many eurozone countries, domestic banks often hold more than 20% of domestic public debt, which is an unsatisfactory situation given that banks are highly leveraged and that sovereign debt is inherently subject to default risk within the euro area. This paper by …Read More

Darvas, Zsolt, Guntram, Wolff, “Should non-euro area countries join the single supervisory mechanism?”, Bruegel Policy Contribution, Issue 2013/06. Irrespective of the euro crisis, a European banking union makes sense, including for non-euro area countries, because of the extent of European Union financial integration. The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is the first element of the banking union. From the point of view of non-euro countries, the draft SSM regulation as amended …Read More

Alogoskoufis, George, (2013), “Macroeconomics and Politics in the Accumulation of Greece’s Debt: An econometric investigation, 1975-2009“, The Hellenic Observatory European Institute London School of Economics & Political Science. This paper focuses on an econometric investigation of the macroeconomic and political factors that contributed to Greece’s excessive debt accumulation and its failure to adequately address its fiscal imbalances, from the restoration of democracy in 1974 till the crisis of 2009. The …Read More

Darvas, Zsolt, (2013), ‘Can Europe recover without credit?’, Bruegel Policy Contribution, Issue 2013/13. Data from 135 countries covering five decades suggests that creditless recoveries, in which the stock of real credit does not return to the pre-crisis level for three years after the GDP trough, are not rare and are characterised by remarkable real GDP growth rates: 4.7 percent per year in middle-income countries and 3.2 percent per year in …Read More

Veron, Nicolas, Wolff, Guntram B., (2013), “From Supervision to Resolution: Next Steps on the Road to European Banking Union”, The Peterson Institute for International Economics. Special resolution regimes for banks and systemically important financial institutions are an attractive alternative to both insolvency and public bailouts and have a compelling track record. The European Council has outlined a policy sequence of three successive steps including the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the …Read More

Aslund, Anders, (2013), ‘Why Austerity Works and Stimulus Doesn’t’, The Peterson Institute for International Economics, 7 January. After five years of financial crisis, the European record is in: Northern Europe is sound, thanks to austerity, while Southern Europe is hurting because of half-hearted austerity or, worse, fiscal stimulus. The predominant Keynesian thinking has been tested, and it has failed spectacularly.”  

Wulfgramm, Melike,  Fervers, (2013), ‘Unemployment and Subsequent Employment Stability: Does Labour Market Policy Matter?’, IZA Discussion Paper, N. 7193. This paper analyses the effect of unemployment insurance generosity and active labour market policy on reemployment stability in Europe. Using EU‐SILC and OECD data, we conduct discrete time survival analyses with shared frailty specification to identify policy effects at the micro and macro level. Empirical evidence suggests that unemployment benefit receipt is …Read More

Thorsten, Beck,  Gros, Daniel, (2012), ‘Monetary Policy and Banking Supervision: Coordination instead of separation’, www.ceps.be, 12 December. Following the June 2012 European Council decision to place the ‘Single Supervisory Mechanism’ (SSM) within the European Central Bank, the general presumption in the policy discussions has been that there should be ‘Chinese walls’ between the supervisory and monetary policy arms of the ECB. The current legislative proposal, in fact, is explicit on this …Read More