The paper endorses the thesis that current macro imbalances are partly due to an excess of household savings in China, whose origin is to be found among other things in household uncertainty about the provision of public services like health care, pensions and education. Focusing on health...

This paper reviews the arguments for and against the ‘Stability and Growth Pact’ signed by the countries of the Euro area. We find the theoretical debate to be inconclusive, as both externality and credibility arguments can be used to yield opposite, and equally plausible conclusions. We...

The application of the policies prescribed by the Washington Consensus in developing countries is the subject of a vast literature. What is much less known is that there exist only one pure laboratory experiment implementing the Washington Consensus in the western world: Europe. The aim of this...

The article starts with a discussion about the transfer of power from democratic institutions to technocratic institutions. It goes on with the hypothesis of a trade-off between efficient economic policies and social justice, the former ones being possible only in an environment that tolerates...

Pensee dans un contexte deserte par la croissance, la reduction du temps de travail (RTT) se trouve appliquee a un moment ou l'espoir d'une croissance durable et du retour au plein emploi redevient realiste. Elle etait initialement une solution de resignation a la croissance "molle" et au...

This paper reviews the arguments in favour and against the Stability and Growth Pact signed by the countries of the Euro area. We find the theoretical debate to be inconclusive, as both externality and credibility arguments can be reversed to yield opposite, and equally plausible conclusions. We...

Why since at least two decades macroeconomic policies have been so active in the US and so passive in Europe? I contend that social norms have changed and that the new norms call for a greater degree of inequality. Then macroeconomic policies have to be active in the United States and passive in...