Past Event
The Euro area after COVID-19 - a conversation with Mario Centeno
At this event we will welcome Mario Centeno to talk about his time as President of the Eurogroup and reflect on the future of the Euro area.
Past Event
At this event we will welcome Mario Centeno to talk about his time as President of the Eurogroup and reflect on the future of the Euro area.
Past Event
Considering a new approach to find the way out of the Great Financial Crisis.
Blog Post
Despite progress in recent years towards a single banking policy framework in the euro area – a banking union – much of the German banking system has remained partly sheltered from uniform rules and disciplines that now apply to nearly all the area’s other banks. The resulting differences in regulatory regimes could generate vulnerabilities in the still-incomplete banking union, which is being tested in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Opinion
We had not seen a common challenge as clear as this pandemic. The sum of national actions and programs is likely to be insufficient.
External Publication
In responding to the global financial crisis, the ECB has pushed its monetary policy into unchartered territories . Today, it appears increasingly constrained by persistently low interest rates. This paper seeks to understand this challenge and assess whether its toolkit would allow the ECB to weather a European recession.
Blog Post
Spreads are rising again in the euro-area at the worst possible time, when fiscal policy is needed to fight the coronavirus pandemic and the related economic shock. This blog post reviews the main options available to European policymakers, their feasibility and potential effectiveness to deal with this issue.
Opinion
The Outright Monetary Transactions tool is not well suited for Italy right now. Italy needs fiscal support both by itself and by the EU. Italy and the rest of the EU need a fiscal bazooka. We should find a way of backstopping our economies immediately.
Policy Contribution
This Policy Contribution tests the hypothesis that an imbalance has grown in Europe over the last few decades because markets have integrated to a greater extent than European-level policymaking, potentially creating difficulties for the democratic process in managing the economy. This hypothesis has been put forward by several authors but not so far tested empirically.
Policy Contribution
Euro-area bank integration has decreased as post-financial crisis national rules require banks to hold more capital at home. It might be undermined further by bank resolution planning. Either a Single Resolution Board takes the lead for the entire banking group or independent local intervention schemes need to be developed for crisis resolution.
Opinion
Her success at helm of Europe’s central bank will depend on her ability to mend fences with hawkish policymakers.
Blog Post
The 10-year real government bond yield, which is the nominal yield deflated by expected inflation, has fallen below zero in Italy and Greece, boosted by increased market confidence for their new governments. Romania is the only remaining EU country with a positive real interest rate. Negative real interest rates vastly help fiscal sustainability and provide a great opportunity to invest in much needed infrastructure and the transition to a carbon-neutral economy.
External Publication
Proposals to reform the euro area are on the agenda again. An overhaul of the complex set of European fiscal rules should be top priority on this agenda because the fiscal framework in place suffers from clearly identified problems: rules are complex (therefore difficult to internalise for policymakers), pro-cyclical (therefore potentially destabilising), and noncompliance is the norm (therefore not credible).