Campos, F. N. & Coricelli, F. (2015) “Why did Britain join the EU? A new insight from economic history“, VoxEU Organisation, 03 February. Britain eschewed EU membership in the late 1950s but changed its mind in the early 1960s, only to be rebuffed by Charles de Gaulle. Membership came only in the early 1970s. This column argues that, among others, Britain joined the EU as a way to avoid …Read More
Wren-Lewis, S. (2015) “We already have a simple and conventional story to explain the weak recovery“, VoxEU Organisation, 30 Ιανουαρίου. The anaemic recovery from the Global Crisis and the downward trend in real interest rates since 1980 have revived interest in the idea of secular stagnation. This column argues that if the US, UK, and Eurozone had not pursued contractionary fiscal policies from 2010 onwards, the recovery would not …Read More
De Grauwe, P. (2015) “Secular stagnation in the Eurozone“, VoxEU Organisation, 30 January. Nowhere in the developed world is the secular stagnation more visible than in the Eurozone. This column explains this phenomenon with asymmetric external balances within the Eurozone. Southern counties had accumulated current-account deficits and became debtors when the Crisis hit, whereas the northern ones became creditors. The burden of the adjustments has been borne almost exclusively …Read More
Merler, S. (2015) “Who’s (still) exposed to Greece? – a first trace of normalisation and resume in confidence since 2013, which the present political turmoil risks to revert“, Bruegel Institute, 29 January. Since the start of the crisis, the structure of Greek debt has changed considerably (almost 80 percent of government financial liabilities are now accounted for by loans, against slightly less than 20 percent back in 2008). At the same …Read More
Niepelt, D. (2015) “Reserves for everyone – towards a new monetary regime?“, VoxEU Organisation, 21 January. Recent experience with the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates, and the use of high-denomination notes by criminals and tax evaders, have led to revived proposals to phase out cash. This column argues that abolishing cash may be neither necessary nor sufficient to overcome the zero lower bound problem, and would severely …Read More
Gorodnichenko, Υ., Talavera, Ο. & Sheremirov, S. (2015) “Will e-commerce make prices more flexible?, VoxEU Organisation, 21 January. An increasing share of purchases are made online where price changes are very cheap. This column presents new evidence on price dispersions and frictions using novel data from an online shopping platform from the US and the UK. Online prices are more flexible than prices in conventional stores but still sticky. …Read More
Mitchell, B. (2015) “Denmark should abandon its euro peg, Bill Mitchell Blog, 21 January. In my soon-to-be-published book on the Eurozone I examined the case of Denmark in some detail in the context of the evolution of the European Monetary System, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), and the ratification process of the Treaty of Maastricht. Denmark was a participant in all the attempts to maintain fixed exchange rates …Read More
Gaillard, E. & Straathof, B. (2015) “Will R&D tax incentives get Europe growing again?“, VoxEU Organisation, 20 January. Tax incentives have become a common policy tool for encouraging firms to spend more on research and development – and the recession has further raised interest in the effectiveness of this policy. This column highlights a new review of the empirical evidence, which suggests that fiscal incentives for R&D only modestly …Read More
Constantinescu, C., Mattoo, A. & Ruta, M. (2015) “Explaining the global trade slowdown“, VoxEU Organisation, 18 January. Not only is world trade lower than its pre-Crisis level, but it is also growing slower than GDP. This column examines the relationship between trade and GDP in the last four decades. The findings indicate that roughly half of the slowdown is driven by structural rather than cyclical factors. Trade itself has …Read More
Mitchell, B. (2015) “SNB decision tells us that the crisis in entering a new phase“, Bill Mitchell Blog, 19 January. Switzerland – home of the secret bank vaults, which house treasures stolen from people (particularly the Jewish victims) by the Nazis during WW2 and ill-gotten cash by capitalists who wish to evade scrutiny of prudential and tax authorities of their domiciled nations. Now it is the canary, which has …Read More
