In numerous Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, the global financial crisis as well as the unpegging of the foreign exchange rate of the Swiss franc (CHF) against the euro amplified the repayment troubles of households with the outstanding CHF-linked debt. In Croatia, the CHF loans...

We study convergence and divergence dynamics in a sample of EMU countries by assembling an extensive dataset that contains information on public spending and policy outcomes in a variety of areas of government intervention including education, health, and civil justice from the early 1990s. We...

This paper reviews the performance of the euro area since the euro's launch 20 years ago. It argues that the euro crisis has exposed existential flaws in the euro regime. Intra-area divergences and the corresponding buildup of imbalances had remained unchecked prior to the crisis. As those...

This paper uses a unique dataset where credit rejections experienced by euro area firms are matched with firm and bank characteristics. This allows us to study simultaneously the role that bank and firm weakness had in the credit reduction observed in the euro area during the sovereign debt...

This paper focuses on the critical differences, but also some commonalities, between the EU and three countries in Northeast Asia - the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of Korea, and Japan ‒ in responding to financial crises. The EU's response is naturally multilateral, but the...

Monetary policy leaves a fiscal footprint. In some circumstances, relieving the fiscal burden becomes the main goal of policy, and inflation control is subordinate. This article notes that the same is true of macroprudential policy, and it characterizes the size and sign of its fiscal footprint,...

This paper first searches for the drivers of the Greek depression in the aftermath of the 2007-8 global crisis and in turn looks for engines of sustained growth. We use a micro-founded macroeconomic model calibrated to Greece. Our simulations show that the adopted adjustment program (namely, the...

In this paper, the focus lies on the way the German government spends, how it spends and what the connection between finance ministry and central bank is. The institutions involved in the process are identified and discussed. As a member of the Eurozone, Germany's national central bank is not...

Fragility that periodically erupts into a full-blown financial crisis appears to be an integral feature of market-based financial systems in spite of the emergence of sophisticated risk management tools and regulatory systems. If anything, the increased frequency of modern crises underscores how...

With public debt-to-GDP levels now set to surpass post-war records and Italy’s ratio approaching levels reached in Greece on the eve of the country’s debt restructuring in early 2012, fears of a return of the sovereign debt crisis have emerged.

This article addresses an anomaly in the European Union (EU)’s recent evolution. Two years ago, Great Britain’s exit from the EU seemed improbable, while Greece’s departure appeared to be imminent. The outcome was precisely the reverse. We explain the paradox and examine its ramifications....

In economic applications, model averaging has found principal use in examining the validity of various theories related to observed heterogeneity in outcomes such as growth, development, and trade. Though often easy to articulate, these theories are imperfectly captured quantitatively. A number...

This study is an effort to explore the impact of various determinants on Greek Outward Foreign Direct Investment from 2001 till the outbreak of the debt crisis in Greece. The case of Greece is of great interest of how a small peripheral EU country in the southern neighborhood drove its...

The European debt crisis has brought about permanent changes in the Eurozone (EZ). The no-bailout rule was - de facto - removed, new institutions such as the ESM and the banking union were designed and partially implemented, new monitoring and surveillance schemes, such as the macroeconomic...

Over the past 40 years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has played a central role in the sovereign debt restructuring process. If the COVID-19 pandemic leads to a significant wave of sovereign debt distress, this role will be closely scrutinized. The paper analyzes how IMF policies have...

Using a DSGE model with nominal wage rigidity, we investigate two scenarios for the Italian economy. The first considers sustained policy commitment to reform. The results indicate the possibility of 'growing out of bad initial conditions', if fiscal consolidation is combined with a program for...

The 2007-2008 financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis effects rippled through the financial system, banks and sovereign states. We analyze these events, focusing on the Portuguese and Spanish case after providing an insight into the Eurozone. We assessed the pricing of sovereign...

Elmar Altvater was a renowned political economist and professor at the Otto-Suhr-Institute of Freie Universität Berlin from 1970 until 2006. Until his death in 2018 he was a point of reference for several generations of students, left-wing academics and politicians, trade union activists,...

Argentinien durchlebt erneut eine schwere Schulden- und Währungskrise, mitten in einem Wahlkampf, der die Amtszeit von Präsident Macri beenden könnte. Die Autoren stellen dar, dass die Krise auf übermäßige Staatsausgaben und eine exzessive Verschuldung in Fremdwährungen zurückzuführen...

This paper considers whether Ireland's sovereign bonds have decoupled from other euro area sovereigns (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain - the "periphery") with whom it was categorised during the sovereign bond market crisis of the early 2010s. Having initially reviewed yield and sovereign...

This paper explains and evaluates three proposals to create "safe assets" for the euro area based on sovereign bonds, in which sovereign risk is limited through diversification and some form of seniority. These assets would be held by banks and other financial institutions, replacing...

We asked economic experts polled by the CESifo World Economic Survey how to handle the fiscal crisis in Greece in the year 2015. The sample includes about 850 experts from 110 countries. We find systematic differences in experts’ recommendations. Our results suggest that policy advice is...

We asked economic experts polled by the CESifo World Economic Survey how to handle the fiscal crisis in Greece in the year 2015. The sample includes about 850 experts from 110 countries. We find systematic differences in experts' recommendations. Our results suggest that policy advice is related...

We construct a unique and comprehensive data set of 19 real-time daily macroeconomic indicators for 11 Eurozone countries, for the 5/11/2009{4/25/2013 period. We use this new data set to characterize the time-varying dependence of the cross-section of sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads...

Crises in the banking and sovereign debt sectors give rise to heightened financial fragility. Of particular concern is the development of self-fulfilling feedback loops where crisis conditions in one sector are transmitted to the other sector and back again. We use time-varying tests of Granger...

We show that, in many countries, tax compliance is volatile and markedly responds to fiscal policy. To explore the consequence of this novel stylized fact, we build a model of sovereign debt with limited commitment and imperfect tax enforcement. Fiscal policy persistently affects the size of the...