Fiscal policy is widely criticized for its failure to act as a stabilizing countercyclical force in the European Monetary Union. Two periods should be distinguished: Prior to the Financial Crisis of 2008, when monetary policy had traction to pursue stability for the aggregate eurozone, fiscal...

This short paper considers all possible stakeholders in different stages of a sustainability transition and matches their behavioral features and diversity to policies. This will involve an assessment of potential or expected responses of stakeholders to a range of policy instruments. Following...

The first decade of economic and monetary union in Europe (EMU) has been a huge success. EMU has significantly benefited its member countries and accelerated the European integration process. Imbalances within EMU - differences in growth, inflation, competitiveness, current account and budget...

Die Corona-Pandemie trifft die Welt mit multiplen Angebots- und Nachfrageschocks zugleich. Das gab es in dieser Breite, Heftigkeit und Schnelligkeit noch nie. Eine schnelle Rückkehr auf die vorherigen Wachstumsspuren ist in allen Weltregionen nicht zu erwarten. Im Jahr 2020 wird die globale...

The large Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) which the ECB started in 2015 on the basis of monetary policy purposes, had major side-effects on fiscal policy. One concerns the programme´s uncommon seigniorage effects. We find that the PSPP not only led to partly negative seigniorage gains,...

Despite performing very positively on some key macroeconomic indicators in recent years, the German economy is in grave disequilibrium if the high current account surplus is included in the analysis. The paper scrutinises the evolution of Germany's external surplus since the inception of the...

This paper aims an empirical investigation of uncertainty in the Euro Zone as well as the US. For this purpose I conduct a factor analysis of uncertainty measures starting in 2001 until the end of 2011. I use survey-based data provided by the ECB and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia as...

The European sovereign debt crisis represents an interesting opportunity to investigate the reaction of the European Central Bank as a crisis fighting institution and the importance of central bank personalities in policy execution. Accordingly, this paper aims at investigating to what extent...

The paper analyzes the integration of euro area sovereign bond markets during the European sovereign debt crisis. It tests for contagion (i.e., an intensification in the transmission of shocks across countries), fragmentation (a reduction in spillovers) and flight-to-quality patterns, exploiting...

No one seems to be neutral about the effects of EMU on the German economy. Roughly speaking, there are two camps: those who see the euro as the advent of a newly open, large, and efficient regime which will lead to improvements in European and in particular in German competitiveness; those who...