Emmott, Bill, (2016), “Let’s Get Fiscal”, Project Syndicate, 8 June Everyone knows there is no gain without pain. But there can be pain without gain – a lesson that Western populations have been learning the hard way since at least 2012. With years of fiscal austerity in the United States, Europe, and Japan having achieved nothing, it is time for governments to start spending again. The proposal will be met with outrage …Read More
Schoenmaker, Dirk, Véron, Nicolas, (2016), “European banking supervision: the first eighteen months”, Bruegel, 8 June European banking supervision, also known as the Single Supervisory Mechanism, is the first and arguably the main component of European banking union. In late 2014, the European Central Bank became the supervisor for the region’s largest banking groups; the ECB also oversees the supervision by national authorities of smaller banks. This Blueprint is the first in-depth study of how …Read More
Gros, Daniel, (2016), “IMF Go Home”, Project Syndicate, 8 June The curtains are up on another act of the Greek debt drama. Eurozone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund have agreed with Greece to begin, per the IMF’s demands, providing some debt relief to the country, and to release €10.3 billion ($11.6 billion) in bailout funds. Greece, for its part, has agreed to another round of austerity and structural reform. …Read More
World Bank Group, (2016), “Global Economic Prospects, June 2016 : Divergences and Risks”, World Bank, June The World Bank is revising its 2016 global growth forecast down to 2.4 percent from the 2.9 percent pace projected in January. The move is due to sluggish growth in advanced economies, stubbornly low commodity prices, weak global trade, and diminishing capital flows. Commodity-exporting emerging market and developing economies have struggled to adapt to …Read More
Bricongne, Jean-Charles, Demertzis, Maria, Pontuch, Peter, Turrini, Alessandro, (2016), “Macroeconomic Relevance of Insolvency Frameworks in a High-debt Context: An EU Perspective”, European Commission, Discussion Paper 032, June The high level of private debt in many EU countries has put a spotlight on the role that insolvency frameworks can play in helping to address debt overhangs and clean bank balance sheets of nonperforming loans. This paper reviews the macroeconomic relevance of insolvency frameworks from an …Read More
Glick, Reuven, Rose, Andrew K., (2016), “Currency unions and trade: A post-EMU reassessment”, European Economic Review, June In our European Economic Review (2002) paper, we used pre-1998 data on countries participating in and leaving currency unions to estimate the effect of currency unions on trade using (then-) conventional gravity models. In this paper, we use a variety of empirical gravity models to estimate the currency union effect on trade and exports, using recent …Read More
European Central Bank, (2016), “The international role of the euro”, ECB, June This 15th annual review of the international role of the euro published by the ECB is an interim version that presents a concise overview of developments in the use of the euro by non-euro area residents. The period covered by this report is 2015 and early 2016. The developments seen in the international role of the euro during …Read More
Bofinger, Peter, (2016), “German macroeconomics: The long shadow of Walter Eucken”, Voxeu, 7 June At first sight, it is difficult to explain why the macroeconomic debate and macroeconomic policy in Germany differ considerably from other countries, despite the same academic textbooks and models being used as elsewhere. This column explains how a specific paradigm of macroeconomics, developed by Walter Eucken and diametrically opposed to Keynesian economics, is behind the German formal …Read More
Eurofound, (2016), “Eurofound yearbook 2015: Living and working in Europe”, Publications Office of the European Union, May Eurofound celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding in 2015. In 1975, the then European Community set up the Agency, charging it with the task of contributing to the planning and design of better living and working conditions in Europe. The social policy agenda and priorities may have changed over those 40 years, …Read More
European Commission, (2016), “Convergence Report 2016”, European Commission, Institutional Paper 026, June Convergence Reports examine whether Member States satisfy the conditions for adopting the single currency. The 2016 Convergence Report, adopted on 7 June 2016, is a regular biennial report and examines progress with convergence in seven Member States with a derogation – Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. The report concludes that none of the …Read More
