Most citizens of the European Union have begun to openly display their disenchantment with the institution. Italy’s stint as duty president gives it a chance to promote a renewal of the European project through common fiscal policies capable of providing concrete answers to the problems...

Since the late 1990s, the European Commission has pursued a strategy to build an energy policy for Europe based on three main objectives for both internal and external activities: sustainability, competitiveness and security. While a market-oriented approach dominated for a number of years,more...

The pricing of global commodities has come to rely heavily on the role of financial institutions and derivative instruments in recent years. The financial crisis and the increasing volatility of commodity prices, however, exposed the weaknesses of physical and financial commodity markets. In...

Development finance institutions and international financial institutions are increasingly being asked to deliver 'marketlevel impact' through their operations. This paper explores how these institutions consider market effects in their impact assessment systems. We present the two dominant...

Italy's export increased by 11% 2011- 2015 (as of July) as it benefited from two major macroeconomic developments: the global recovery and the depreciation of the Euro. Beyond the EU common market, the United States continue to be Italy's first strategic trade partner due to its...

Well-functioning risk-sharing arrangements are essential for the shock absorbing capacity and resilience of an economy, even more so for countries in a monetary union where the single monetary policy is unable to address asymmetric shocks. The common shocks that euro area member states have been...

Parliamentary hearings are a fundamental tool to hold independent central banks accountable. However, it is not clear what type of information central banks provide when they communicate with parliaments compared to other existing information channels. In this article, we address this question...

Two of the four macroeconomic adjustment programmes, Portugal and Ireland's, can be considered a success in the sense that the initial expectations in terms of adjustment, both fiscal and external, were broadly fulfilled. A rebound based on exports has taken hold in these two countries, but a...

Two of the four macroeconomic adjustment programmes, Portugal and Ireland s, can be considered a success in the sense that the initial expectations in terms of adjustment, both fiscal and external, were broadly fulfilled. A rebound based on exports has taken hold in these two countries, but a...

Two of the four macroeconomic adjustment programmes, Portugal and Ireland's, can be considered a success in the sense that the initial expectations in terms of adjustment, both fiscal and external, were broadly fulfilled. A rebound based on exports has taken hold in these two countries, but a...