Bølstad, Jørgen, Elhardt, Christoph, (2015), “To bail out or not to bail out? Crisis politics, credibility, and default risk in the Eurozone”, European Union Politics, Issue 16, Volume 3, September We examine the impact of signals regarding the Eurozone’s bail-out commitment on government bond spreads in the Eurozone’s periphery, analysing the effect of positive, negative and mixed statements and decisions by the EU, the ECB and Germany. We construct a dataset of relevant …Read More
Building a Better Union : Incentivizing Structural Reforms in the Euro Area
Banerji, Angana, Barkbu, Bergljot, John, James, Kinda, Tidiane, Saksonovs, Sergejs, Schoelermann, Hanni, Wu, Tao, (2015), “Building a Better Union : Incentivizing Structural Reforms in the Euro Area”, IMF publications-Working Papers, 11 September The momentum for structural reforms is waning in the euro area at a time when even faster progress is needed to boost productivity and growth, achieve real economic convergence, and improve the resilience of the monetary union. What can the European Union (EU) institutions do to bridge this divide? This paper …Read More
A false sense of security in applying handpicked equations for stress test purposes
Gross, Marco, Poblacion, Javier, (2015), “A false sense of security in applying handpicked equations for stress test purposes”, ECB Working Paper Series, No. 1845, September The purpose of this paper is to promote the use of Bayesian model averaging for the design of satellite models that financial institutions employ for stress testing. Banks employing ’handpicked’ equations – while meeting standard economic and econometric soundness criteria – risk significantly underestimating the …Read More
Economic Convergence of Central and Eastern European EU Member States over the Last Decade (2004-2014)
Forgó, Balázs, Jevčák, Anton, (2015), “Economic Convergence of Central and Eastern European EU Member States over the Last Decade (2004-2014)”, European Commission publications, Discussion Paper 001, JULY 2015 This paper takes stock of the progress achieved by the ten Central and Eastern European countries, which entered the EU in 2004 and 2007, in terms of their real and nominal economic convergence visà- vis the twelve EU Member States which were part of the euro area in …Read More
Monetary Policies in Advanced Economies: Good for Them, Good for Others
IMF, (2015), “Monetary Policies in Advanced Economies: Good for Them, Good for Others”, IMF Policy Paper, 23 June 2015. Accommodative monetary policies in systemic advanced economies can have a positive impact on economic activity in other countries if they are perceived as good news about growth prospects in advanced economies, said a new IMF report that assesses the “spillover” impact of policies on other economies. Seven years after the onset of …Read More
Taxing Wealth: Past, Present, Future
Astarita, Caterina, (2015), “Taxing Wealth: Past, Present, Future”, European Economy Discussion Paper, N. 003, July. In times of fiscal consolidation and strong macroeconomic adjustment needs in some EU Member States, the debate on wealth taxation gained momentum, both in the academic and in the policy debate. In this context, the aim of the workshop, held by DG ECFIN on 13 November 2014, was to discuss theoretical and policy issues associated with wealth taxation, including the …Read More
The great collapse in value added trade
Stehrer, Robert, Nagengast, Arne, (2015), “The great collapse in value added trade”, ECB Working Paper Series, No 1833 / July 2015 This paper studies the great collapse in value added trade using a structural decomposition analysis. We show that changes in vertical specialisation accounted for almost half of the great trade collapse, while the previous literature on gross trade has mainly focused on final expenditure, in-ventory adjustment and adverse credit supply conditions. The decline in …Read More
Long-lasting consequences of the European crisis
Jimeno, Juan, (2015), “Long-lasting consequences of the European crisis”, ECB Working Paper Series, No 1832 / July 2015 The Great Recession and the subsequent European crisis may have long-lasting effects on aggregate demand, aggregate supply, and, hence, on macroeconomic performance over the medium and long-run. Besides the fact that financial crisis last longer and are succeeded by slower recoveries, and apart from the hysteresis effects that may operate after episodes of long-term unemployment, the combination of high …Read More
Does Banking Union Worsen the EU’s Democratic Deficit? The Need for Greater Supervisory Data Transparency
Gandrud, Christopher, Hallerberg, Mark, (2015), “Does Banking Union Worsen the EU’s Democratic Deficit? The Need for Greater Supervisory Data Transparency”, Journal of Common Market Studies, Volume 53, Issue 4, Pages 703–935, July 2015 Does banking union exacerbate the European Union’s democratic deficit? Using Scharpf’s ‘input’ and ‘output’ legitimacy concepts, it is argued in this article that its design does worsen the democratic deficit. There are good reasons to limit ‘input legitimacy’ for …Read More
France, Germany and the New Framework for EMU Governance
Maris, Georgios, Sklias, Pantelis, (2015), “France, Germany and the New Framework for EMU Governance”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol.23, Issue 2, 13 July The European crisis is the best case study for examining both the vulnerabilities of Europe’s framework for economic governance and the very process of European integration itself. This statement is true for several reasons: first, because the European crisis is the most serious crisis the European …Read More