Patel, Α., (2014), “Eurozone Crisis: Another Chapter in the Never-Ending Saga of Boom and Bust”, LSE Eurocrisis in the Press, 21 February. The policy response to the euro crisis since 2008 has been an extremely protracted affair, set against the backdrop not only of containing financial and sovereign debt crises and managing the risks of financial contagion (more normally associated with emerging economies) but also of the possibility of the …Read More
Wolff, Β., Darvas, Z. Sapir, A., (2014), “The long haul: managing exit from financial assistance”, Bruegel, 20 February. Countries can make a clean exit from financial assistance, or enter a new programme or a precautionary programme, depending on the sustainability of their public debt and their vulnerability to shocks. Ireland made a clean exit in December 2013, supported by significant budgetary and current-account adjustment and signs of economic recovery. But …Read More
Granville, Br., (2014), “Poking the Eurozone Bear”, Project Syndicate, 21 February. The conventional wisdom is that, when confronted by a bear, you should lie motionless until it loses interest (or assumes that you are dead) and leaves you alone. But there are different species of bear, with some more likely to be deterred by bold, purposeful action. The question is how to determine the right approach when terror incarnate is …Read More
Levy, M., (2014), “Clarifying the debate about deflation concerns”,VoxEU, 21 February. A popular view among economic commentators is that rich countries face a serious risk of deflation, and should adopt aggressive macroeconomic stimulus policies to ward it off. This column argues that despite similar headline inflation rates, the US, Europe, and Japan in fact face very different macroeconomic conditions. In the US, much of the recent disinflation is attributable to …Read More
IMF, (2014), “Global Prospects and Policy Challenges”, Meetings of G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, 22–23 February, Sydney, Australia. Global growth has strengthened as expected in recent months, largely driven by advanced economies, where easier financial market conditions and gradually improving consumer and business confidence have supported growth. While emerging economies have benefited from the stronger external demand, domestic demand has remained weaker than expected in many of them, …Read More
Braconier, Η. and Pisu, M., (2014), “Roads to deeper European integration”, VoxEu, 20 February. Over the past 60 years, increasing European integration has brought peace and security, besides contributing to large social welfare gains (through lower prices and a larger variety of products). Still, national borders matter a lot within Europe and a vast literature has documented the large negative effect of national borders on trade – also known as …Read More
Barbulescu, R., (2014), “EU freedom of movement is coming under increasing pressure in the UK and other European states”, LSE Blogs, 20 February. EU citizens have the right to live and work in any other EU state. As Roxana Barbulescu writes, however, this principle of freedom of movement has come under pressure from a number of recent developments. Focusing on the UK, she notes that while there are substantial economic …Read More
Wolff, G., De Sousa, C., Sapir, An., and Terzi, Al., (2014), “The Troika and financial assistance in the euro area: successes and failures”, Bruegel, 19 February. This study provides a systematic evaluation of financial assistance for Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus. All four programmes, and in particular the Greek one, are very large financially compared to previous international programmes because macroeconomic imbalances and the loss of price competitiveness that accumulated …Read More
Tse, Τ. and Esposito, Μ., (2014), “Investing in ‘pockets of excellence’ in periphery countries would help the EU address its lack of competitiveness”, LSE Blogs, 19 February. We are currently at the beginning of a crucial year for the EU. While we are still struggling with the ongoing Eurozone crisis, European Parliament elections will be taking place this coming May. This means that work is already winding down and the …Read More
Mariniello, M., (2014), “Why Competition Policy matters for Growth?”, Bruegel, 18 February. Economic literature suggests that competition can have broad economic effects in three areas: the total amount of economic wealth available in the market at a given point of time, companies’ productive process, and their incentives to innovate or improve the quality of their products. In the first area, any transaction creates some value. An increase in prices resulting …Read More
