Kobielarz, M., Uras, B. & Eijffinger, S. (2015) “Sovereign debt, bailouts and contagion in the Eurozone“, VoxEU Organisation, 12 March.   The Eurozone Crisis has been characterised by a sharp rise in sovereign interest rates in peripheral countries. The re-emergence of spreads between peripheral and core Eurozone countries at the start of the Greek crisis came after a decade of homogeneous interest rates in the monetary union. This column investigates …Read More

Claeys, G., Leandro, A. & Mandra, A. (2015) “European Central Bank quantitative easing: the detailed manual“, Bruegel Institute, 11 March.   The European quantitative easing programme, the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP), started on 9 March 2015 and will last at least until September 2016. Purchases will be composed of sovereign bonds and securities from European institutions and national agencies. The European Central Bank Governing Council imposed limits to ensure …Read More

Barrios, S., Fatica, S., Martinez, D. & Mourre, G. (2015) “The fiscal effects of work-related tax expenditures in Europe“, European Economy. Economic Papers, Νο. 545. February: Brussels.   Work-related tax incentives can have a significant effect on how much, if at all, certain individuals decide to work. This paper examines the fiscal impacts and associated welfare costs of reforms to such tax relief measures in five European countries, France, Spain, …Read More

Basse, T. (2015) “Searching for the EMU core member countries“, European Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 34, Supplement, June2014, pp. S32–S39.   This study uses techniques of cointegration analysis and tests for structural change to search for changes to sovereign credit risk in some relevant member states of the European Monetary Union (EMU) trying to identify core countries. While there are a number of core countries the empirical findings presented …Read More