We use a panel of euro area countries to assess the determinants of long-term sovereign bond yield spreads over the period 1999.01-2010.12. We find that, unlike the period preceding the global financial crisis, European government bond yield spreads are well explained by macro- and fiscal...

We use a dynamic multipath general-to-specific algorithm to capture structural instability in the link between euro area sovereign bond yield spreads against Germany and their underlying determinants over the period January 1999-August 2011. We offer new evidence suggesting a significant...

We assess the business cycle synchronization features of aggregate output in the 27 EU countries using annual data for the period 1970-2009. In particular, we compute measures of synchronisation for private consumption, government spending, gross fixed capital formation, exports and imports. Our...