Claeys, G., Hallerberg, M. and Tschekassin, O. (2014), “European Central Bank accountability: how the monetary dialogue could be improved”, Bruegel, 3 March. According to the European Union Treaties, the European Central Bank (ECB) is accountable to the European Parliament. In practice, this accountability takes mainly the form of a quarterly Monetary Dialogue between the president of the ECB and the European Parliament Economic and Monetary Affairs committee. We assess the …Read More

Dolls, Μ., Fuest, C., Neumann, D. and Peichl, A., (2014), “Fiscal Integration in the Eurozone: Economic Effects of Two Key Scenarios”, EUROMOD Working Paper 1/14, January. The 2008-09 crisis has shown that some euro area member countries were unable to sufficiently stabilize their economies which has given rise to a debate about deeper fiscal integration in Europe. In this paper, we analyze the redistributive and stabilizing effects of two scenarios …Read More

Dao, Μ., Furceri, D. and Loungani, P., (2013), “Regional Labor Market Adjustmentsin the United States and Europe”, IMF Working Paper, 11 February. We examine patterns of regional adjustments to shocks in the US during the past 40 years. Using state-level data, we estimate the dynamic response of regional employment, unemployment, participation rates and net migration to state-relative labor demand shocks. We find that (i) the long-run effect of a state-specific shock …Read More

Pescatori, A., Sandri, D. and Simon, J., (2014), “Debt and Growth: Is There a Magic Threshold?”, IMF Working Paper 14/34, February. Using a novel empirical approach and an extensive dataset developed by the Fiscal Affairs  Department of the IMF, we find no evidence of any particular debt threshold above which medium-term growth prospects are dramatically compromised. Furthermore, we find the debt trajectory can be as important as the debt level …Read More

Shin, H.S., (2013), “Procyclicality and the Search for Early Warning Indicators”, International Monetary Fund, IMF Working Paper No. 13/258, December. This paper compares three types of early warning indicators of financial instability – those based on financial market prices, those based on normalized measures of total credit and those based on liabilities of financial intermediaries. Prices perform well as concurrent indicators of market conditions but are not suitable as early …Read More