The asset purchase program of the Euro area, active between 2015 and 2018, constitutes an interesting special case of Quantitative Easing (QE) because the ECB's (Public Sector Purchase Program) PSPP program involved the purchase of the bonds of peripheral Euro area governments, which were...

We analyze the benefits and costs of a non-euro country opting-in to the banking union. The decision to opt-in depends on the comparison between the assessment of the banking union attractiveness and the robustness of a national safety net. The benefits of opting-in are still only potential and...

This paper examines business cycle synchronization in the European Monetary Union with a special focus on the core-periphery pattern in the aftermath of the crisis. Using a quarterly index for business cycle synchronization by Cerqueira (2013), our panel data estimates suggest that it is...

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...

This study investigates the shock-absorbing properties of a banking union by providing a detailed comparison between the way regional financial shocks have been absorbed at the federal level in the US, but have led to severe regional (national) financial dislocation and tensions in Europe and...

This paper reviews cases of successful price and wage adjustment, which are often regarded as constituting best practice, - Australia, Latvia and the German new states and contrasts them with the Greek experience under the Troika Programs. Latvia stands out as having had the quickest adjustment...

What to do when a country experiences a sudden stop in capital inflows and has to adjust externally? Sticky wages make adjustment to an external imbalance more difficult within a monetary union. Periods of high unemployment are usually necessary to achieve the required real depreciation...

The purpose of this contribution is to illustrate the mechanism by which higher oil prices might lead to lower interest rates in the context of a simple model that takes into account the global external savings equilibrium. The simple model has interesting implications for how one views the huge...