Arora, Vivek, (2016), “Five Lessons from a Review of Recent Crisis Programs”, iMFdirect, 11 July IMF lending increased to unprecedented levels in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. As difficulties emerged, we extended financial support to countries across the world—in the euro area, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and emerging economies in Europe. The IMF tried to draw lessons in real time as the crisis evolved in order to adapt our …Read More

Ricardo Reis, (2016), “QE in the future: the central bank’s balance sheet in a fiscal crisis”, Centre for Economic Policy Research, July Analysis of quantitative easing (QE) typically focus on the recent past studying the policy’s effectiveness during a financial crisis when nominal interest rates are zero. This paper examines instead the usefulness of QE in a future fiscal crisis, modeled as a situation where the fiscal outlook is inconsistent with …Read More

Janssen, Ronald, (2016), “The OECD And Job Protection: New Findings But Old Policy Recipes On ‘Your Wage Or Your Job”, Social Europe, 7 July One of the key findings from the 2016 Employment Outlook just released by the OECD is that easier firing does not create jobs. Moreover, the OECD also finds that loosening job protection in the middle of an economic downturn results in immediate and substantial job losses. However, …Read More

De Grauwe, Paul, Ji, Yuemei, (2016), “Animal spirits and the optimal level of the inflation target”, Voxeu, 7 July Low inflation targets can cause economies to hit the zero lower bound during deflationary periods caused by even mild shocks. In such circumstances, central banks lose their ability to stimulate the economy. This column assesses the risk of this happening using a model that endogenises self-perpetuating optimism and pessimism in the economy. …Read More