Sinn, Hans-Werner, (2013), “Saving Europe’s Real Hegemon”, www.project-syndicate.org, 28 Αugust. Last June, the European Commission announced its about-face on bank restructuring. The money for recapitalizing distressed banks would now come primarily from creditors, not European taxpayers, with a pecking order to specify which lenders would be repaid first. All of this is welcome, at least in principle. In practice, however, the scheme leaves much to be desired.

Pisani-Ferry, J., (2013), “The Post-Crisis Global Economy in Three Words”, www.project-syndicate.org, 28 August. Five years have passed since the collapse of the American investment bank Lehman Brothers triggered financial mayhem and marked the onset of the Great Recession. Though the dust may not have fully settled, three catchwords sum up what we have learned so far – and what remains to be done.

P van Dalen, H., Henkens, K., (2013), “The downsizing dilemmas of European employers”, www.voxeu.org, 28 August. In times of economic crisis, managers often take drastic measures to survive. This column presents new research on the preferences of managers from across Europe when faced with ‘downsizing’. It seems that, when recession bites, the instincts or ‘animal spirits’ of employers that were previously suppressed by prosperity or considered to be outdated resurface. …Read More

Blyth, M., (2013), “End Austerity Now”, www.project-syndicate.org, 20 August. In recent weeks, talk about a budding recovery in the eurozone has gained traction, with key indices pointing to expansion in the core countries – data that many are citing as evidence that austerity is finally working. Money-market funds from the United States are returning, albeit cautiously, to resume funding of European bank debt. Even Goldman Sachs is now bullishly piling into European …Read More

Pâris, P.,  Wyplosz, Ch., (2013), “To end the Eurozone crisis, bury the debt forever”, www.voxeu.org, 6 August. The Eurozone’s debt crisis is getting worse despite appearances to the contrary. How can we end it? This column presents five major options for reducing crisis countries’ debt. Looking into the details, it seems the only option that is both realistic and effective is for countries to default by selling monetised debt to the …Read More

Eichengreen, B., (2013),  “The ECB Grows Up”, www.project-syndicate.org, 9 August. August 2 marked the first anniversary of the European Central Bank’s “outright monetary transactions” program, under which it stands ready to purchase government bonds on the secondary market. The ECB announced OMT in response to last summer’s panicked sales of southern European sovereign debt, which threatened to blow apart the eurozone.   

Gros, D., (2013), “Has Austerity Failed in Europe?”, www.project-syndicate.org, 14 August. Although many European governments have announced expenditure cuts and tax hikes, their debt/GDP ratios continue to deteriorate. So, if the purpose of austerity was to reduce debt levels, its critics are right: fiscal belt-tightening has failed. But the goal of austerity was not just to stabilize debt ratios.

Frankel, Jeffrey, (2013), “How Many European Recessions?”, www.project-syndicate.org, 17 July. The release of revised GDP data by the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics in late June seemed like an occasion for cheer, because growth had not quite been negative for two consecutive quarters in the winter of 2011-12, as previously thought. The point, as it was reported, is that a second UK recession following the global financial crisis in …Read More

Zingales, Luigi, (2013), “German Banks on Top”, www.project-syndicate.org, 18 July. Overcoming the European Union’s current economic malaise, as almost everyone acknowledges, requires deeper integration, with the first step taking the form of a banking union supervised by the European Central Bank. But Europe’s banking union also requires uniform rules for winding up insolvent financial institutions – and this has become a sticking point.