William White, (2017), “The Dangerous Delusion of Price Stability”, Project Syndicate, 14 December Since the hyperinflation of the 1970s, which central banks were right to combat by whatever means necessary, maintaining positive but low inflation has become a monetary-policy obsession. But, because the world economy has changed dramatically since then, central bankers have started to miss the monetary-policy forest for the trees. Relevant Posts Ferdinando Giugliano, (2017), «The ECB Needs an …Read More

Ferdinando Guigliano, (2017), “The Euro Zone Needs More Than a New Roadmap”, Bloomberg View, 15 December When the European Council meets Thursday and Friday, one document for discussion will be the European Commission’s new plan for the future of monetary union. Many of the ideas are not so much innovative as useful. Others look difficult to enforce. Most importantly, the reform plan will remain yet another meaningless document until euro …Read More

Nikos S. Magginas, Effrosyni Alevizopoulou, Aikaterini Gouveli, Eleni Balikou, (2017), “Greece’s recovery on track, boosted by business activity and tourism”, NBG Economic Analysis Department Greece Macro Analysis Team, December 2017 According to NBG analysis, Q3:2017 trends can be explained by strong business activity and an inventory replenishment by Greek businesses in view of the higher-than-initially-expected demand in the first semester and strong orders for H2:2017. Relevant Posts Sotiris Nikas, Christos Ziotis, Nikos Chrysoloras, (2017), «Betting on A Greek Recovery», Bloomberg, …Read More

Simon Evenett, Johannes Fritz, (2017), “Europe fettered: How foreign trade distortions hold back European exporters”, VoxEU, 12 December The focus of much of the literature on the trade impact of crisis-era protectionism on import restrictions is misplaced. This column introduces the latest Global Trade Alert report, which shows that while import restrictions played their part in holding back European exporters, trade-distorting subsidies were more important. Relevant Posts  Simon Evenett, (2017), …Read More

Konstantinos Efstathiou, (2017), “Latest data shows developing trends in the European Central Bank’s refinancing operations”, Bruegel, 12 December At this stage, open market operations of the European Central Bank (ECB) primarily consist of long-term funding with maturity exceeding three years, i.e. mostly Targeted Long-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTROs). The importance of traditional, one-week Main Refinancing Operations (MRO) and three-month Long-Term Refinancing Operations (LTROs) has all but disappeared. More recently, the relative …Read More

 Simon Evenett, (2017), “Cloth for Wine? The Relevance of Ricardo’s Comparative Advantage in the 21st Century”, VoxEU, 6 December Two hundred years ago, with a simple yet profound example about England trading cloth for Portuguese wine, David Ricardo introduced the Principle of Comparative Advantage. In this eBook, leading trade policy analysts examine whether Ricardo’s insights remain valid in a world where services as well as good cross borders as does data and technology, where there …Read More

Sebastian Diessner , (2017), “The macroeconomic consensus underpinning EMU is shifting.Could it pave the way for a completion of the Eurozone?”, EUROPP LSE, 13 December The Eurozone crisis prompted many observers to conclude that the Eurozone requires a banking and fiscal union to be considered ‘complete’. But realising these aims remains politically difficult and it is far from clear how agreement can be reached on the way forward. Sebastian Diessner …Read More

Manuel Muñiz,(2017), “Europe As A Solution To Nationalism”, SocialEurope, 13 December José Ortega y Gasset, one of Spain’s pre-eminent intellectuals of the 20th century, wrote in his 1922 seminal work “Invertebrate Spain” that what underpins the existence of nations is not a common history but rather a “compelling project for tomorrow”. For Ortega it was not a shared past that brought and kept diverse peoples together but a captivating vision …Read More