Burda, Michael, (2013), “Redesigning the ECB with regional rather than national central banks”, www.voxeu.org, 15  July. Eurozone national central banks that take a national perspective risk politicising the ECB’s monetary policy. This column argues that this is a significant risk that should be overcome with a fundamental overhaul of the Eurosystem. A central element would be to take the ‘national’ out of the EZ’s national central banks. Just as US …Read More

Burda, Michael, (2013), “Redesigning the ECB with regional rather than national central banks”, www.voxeu.com, 15 July. Eurozone national central banks that take a national perspective risk politicising the ECB’s monetary policy. This column argues that this is a significant risk that should be overcome with a fundamental overhaul of the Eurosystem. A central element would be to take the ‘national’ out of the EZ’s national central banks. Just as US regional …Read More

Gros, Daniel, (2013), “Europe’s Zombie Banks”, www.project-syndicate.org, 10 July. What is wrong with Europe’s banks? The short answer is that the sector is too large, has too little capital, and contains too many players that lack a viable long-term business model. It is the combination of the last two factors – an overabundance of banks with no sustainable way to turn a profit – that constitutes the most serious and …Read More

Stiglitz, Joseph, (2013), “The Free Trade Charade”, www.project-syndicate.org, 4 July. Though nothing has come of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Round of global trade negotiations since they were launched almost a dozen years ago, another round of talks is in the works. But this time the negotiations will not be held on a global, multilateral basis; rather, two huge regional agreements – one transpacific, and the other transatlantic – …Read More

Bartels, Bernhard, Weder di Mauro, Beatrice, (2013), “A rating agency for Europe-A good idea?”, www.voxeu.org, 4 July. US-based credit-rating agencies are regularly subject to condemnation for causing or amplifying financial crises – the Eurozone Crisis in particular. Should Europe try to set up a European agency to counter this? This column discusses evidence that shows that the largest German rating agency was more aggressive than the US Big Three both …Read More

Gros, Daniel, (2013), “EZ banking union with a sovereign virus”, www.voxeu.org, 14 June. The doom-loop between banks and the national governments played a dominant role in the Eurozone crisis for Ireland and Cyprus. A Eurozone banking union is usually viewed as the solution. This column argues that the doom-loop cannot be undone as long as banks hold oversized amounts of their government’s debt. A simple solution would be to apply …Read More

De Grauwe, Paul, Ji, Yuemei, (2013), “Fiscal implications of the ECB’s bond-buying programme”, www.voxeu.org, 14 June. The monetary-fiscal policy connection is under scrutiny by the German Constitutional Court in the context of the ECB’s OMT bond-buying programme. This column argues that most analyses are deeply flawed by the misapplication of private-company default principles to the central bank. ECB bond-buying transforms public bonds into monetary base, and sovereign-default risk into inflation …Read More

Coutinho, Leonor, (2013), “Capital Controls in Cyprus; Shooting at a moving target”, Ceps, Ceps Commentaries in Economic Policy, 14 June. In her examination of the capital controls that have been in place in Cyprus since March 27th, Leonor Coutinho asks how soon can they be lifted and whether the recapitalisation plans will be sufficiently convincing to allow the Cypriot banking sector to regain the trust of the public.

Gros, Daniel, (2013), “Combating Youth Unemployment: The latest European fad?”, CEPS, Ceps Commentaries in Economic Policy, 14 June. When examining youth unemployment in the broader context of its contribution to total unemployment in Europe, Daniel Gros finds in this new Commentary that the problem reveals a completely different picture from the one usually presented.  Extreme figures on youth unemployment in the periphery hide the fact that the number of actually …Read More

Rodrik, Dani (2013), “Europe’s Way Out”, www.project-syndicate.org, 12 June. It seems that austerity is out of fashion in the eurozone – at least for the moment. The European Commission has given Spain, France, and the Netherlands more time to comply with the European Union’s 3%-of-GDP deficit ceiling. Even German government officials now concede that something more than fiscal belt-tightening is needed to revive the economies of the eurozone periphery.