Spellman, J. (2014) “EU Launches Long-Awaited Overhaul of Megabank Regulation“, The European Institute, EI Blog, January.   The European Union’s long-delayed overhaul of megabank regulation now proposes curtailing or banning the riskiest financial activities in hopes of avoiding a repeat of the 2007-2009 global financial system meltdown. Until now, the post-crisis EU banking reforms had not acted to rein in “too big to fail” banks, focusing instead on establishing a …Read More

De Grauwe, P. (2014) “Why the ECJ Should Reject the German Constitutional Court’s Ruling“, Social Europe Journal, 11 March 2014. Despite having a positive effect on the economic situation within the Eurozone, the European Central Bank’s Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program has proved controversial, with the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe recently deeming it illegal under EU law. Paul De Grauwe argues that the ruling reflects a serious misunderstanding of central banking …Read More

Mitchell, B., (2014), “Options for Europe – Part 40”, bilbo.economicoutlook.net, 6 Μαρτίου. The Christophersen Report of August 1990, which expressed the European Commission’s own viewpoint on how economic and fiscal policies might be coordinated, concluded that there “does not need to be a single economic policy in the same way as for monetary policy, and correspondingly there is not the same need for institutional change” (European Commission, 1990: 21). They …Read More

Pisani-Ferry, J., (2014), “Cut the Spending, Spare the Poor”, www.project-syndicate.org, 30 January. Why do some governments spend more than others? The question is more complicated than it appears, especially in the case of European governments. The answer may look obvious when comparing, say, Denmark (where public spending, excluding interest payments on debt, amounted to 58% of GDP in 2012) and the United States (where the same number was 35%). Extensive …Read More