The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the biggest global recession since the Second World War. Forecasts show the European Union underperforming economically relative to the United States and China during 2019–2023. Southern European countries have been particularly strongly affected. Some sectors...

After soaring in the 1970s, inflation in Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development countries stabilised, coming down from 9 percent on average in the early 1980s to about 2 percent in the years before the crisis, and to a lower level in recent years. This trend coincided with the...

The European financial system is plagued at present by two major sources of uncertainty. First, there is still mistrust over the quality of banks" balance sheets. Second, major uncertainty remains about the rules that will apply to bank recapitalisation, bank restructuring and bank resolution in...

Estimates of the recapitalisation needs of the euro-area banking system vary between €50 and €600 billion. The range shows the considerable uncertainty about the quality of banks' balance sheets and about the parameters of the forthcoming European Central Bank stress tests, including the...

Complementing Europe's bank-based system with deeper capital markets and more cross-border financial integration promises benefits, but despite long-running debate and policy action, financial system change remains slow. Fintech has the potential to change financial intermediation structures...

During the crisis the European Central Bank's roles have been greatly extended beyond its price stability mandate. In addition to the primary objective of price stability and the secondary objective of supporting EU economic policies, we identify ten new tasks related to monetary policy and...

Irrespective of the euro crisis, a European banking union makes sense, including for non-euro area countries, because of the extent of European Union financial integration.The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is the first element of the banking union. From the point of view of non-euro...

Inflation rates can differ across regions of monetary unions. We show that in the euro area, the US, Canada, Japan and Australia, inflation rates have been substantially and persistently different in different regions. Differences were particularly substantial in the euro area. Inflation...

Countries can make a clean exit from financial assistance, or enter a new programme or a precautionary programme, depending on the sustainability of their public debt and their vulnerability to shocks. Ireland made a clean exit in December 2013, supported by significant budgetary and...

Irrespective of the euro crisis, a European banking union makes sense, including for non-euro area countries, because of the extent of European Union financial integration. The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is the first element of the banking union. From the point of view of non-euro...