Marelli, Enrico, Signorelli, Marcello, (2017), “Deepening the Economic and Monetary Union: What the Commission missed in its reflection paper”, LSE EUROPP, 20 June The European Commission’s recent reflection paper on deepening economic and monetary union raises several key questions about the past and future of the Eurozone. The paper certainly represents a positive contribution to the ongoing process of European integration, after the impasse caused by the deep and prolonged …Read More

Merler,  Silvia, (2017), “The Fed’s problem with inflation”, Brugel, 19 June Joseph Gagnon at PIIE argues that the FOMC meeting offered three unexpected items. First, Chair Yellen pointed to “one-off” development in the prices of mobile phone service plans and pharmaceuticals in March, as the main reason the FOMC’s preferred measure of inflation has moved away from its 2 percent target to 1.5 percent as of April. Gagnon wonders whether the …Read More

Rothstein, Bo, (2017), “Immigration And Economic Growth: Is Keynes Back?”, Social Europe, 20 June During the huge refugee crisis in 2015, among the OECD countries, Sweden accepted the largest number of refugees in relation to its population size (10m): 163,000 asylum seekers. If the United States had received an equal share compared to its population, it would have been about 5.5 million people but it took in only about 70,000 asylum …Read More