D’alessio, Giovanni, Gambacorta, Romina, Ilardi, Giuseppe, (2013), “Are Germans poorer than other Europeans? The principal Eurozone differences in wealth and income”, www.voxoeu.org, 24 May. The ECB’s recent survey on household finances and consumption threw up some unexpected results – counter-intuitively, the average German household has less wealth than the average Mediterranean household. In line with a recent VoxEU.org contribution from De Grauwe and Ji, this article analyses the principal differences …Read More

Rogoff, Kenneth, (2013), “Europe’s Lost Keynesians”, www.project-syndicate.org, 23 May. There is no magic Keynesian bullet for the eurozone’s woes. But the spectacularly muddle-headed argument nowadays that too much austerity is killing Europe is not surprising. Commentators are consumed by politics, flailing away at any available target, while the “anti-austerity” masses apparently believe that there are easy cyclical solutions to tough structural problems.

Higgins, Matthew, Klitgaard, Thomas, (2013), “Foreign Borrowing in the Euro Area Periphery: The End Is Near”, Federal Reserve of New York, 22 Μαΐου. Current account deficits in euro area periphery countries have now largely disappeared. This represents a substantial adjustment. Only two years ago, deficits stood at nearly 10 percent of GDP in Greece and Portugal and 5 percent in Spain and Italy.

Spence, Michael, (2013), “Learning about growth from austerity”,  www.project-syndicate.org, 18 May. In a recent set of studies, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff used a vast array of historical data to show that the accumulation of high levels of public (and private) debt relative to GDP has an extended negative effect on growth. The size of the effect incited debate about errors in their calculations. Few, however, doubt the validity of …Read More