Since Jean Monnet conceived the Coal and Steel Community, free trade has successfully prevented serious conflicts in Europe between democratically governed States with market economies. After six countries established the European Community, this principle has been extended successfully to its...

Under what conditions can the European Neighbourhood Policy achieve one of its main objectives: to resolve conflicts in the European Union's neighbourhood? In the spirit of Montesquieu and Monnet, the basic hypothesis of the EU is that closer economic integration encourages governments to take...

This lecture addresses three related aspects of monetary and fiscal management in Europe and elsewhere. First, I discuss the implications of economic integration for monetary and fiscal policy, especially the narrow focus on low inflation as the main objective of monetary policy. I argue that...

The argument that policy risk, i.e., uncertainty about monetary and fiscal policy, has been holding back the economic recovery in the U.S. during the Great Recession has a large popular appeal. We analyze the role of policy risk in explaining business cycle fluctuations by using an estimated New...

How much does inequality matter for the business cycle and vice versa? Using a Bayesian likelihood approach, we estimate a heterogeneous-agent New-Keynesian (HANK) model with incomplete markets and portfolio choice between liquid and illiquid assets. The model enlarges the set of shocks and...