The crisis has underlined the strong interdependence between the euro-area banking and sovereign crises. To understand the role domestic banks have played in holding sovereign debt, a breakdown of government debt by holding sectors is required. The data shows that at the start of the crisis,...

The single currency was expected to make balance of payments irrelevant between the euro-area member states. This benign view has been challenged by recent developments, especially as imbalances between euro-area central banks have widened within the TARGET2 settlement system. Current-account...

In this paper, Benedicta Marzinotto and Jörg Rocholl focus on the tightening of credit conditions for banking rules (Basel III), particularly the estimated macroeconomic costs range, monetary policy and the aggregate costs of the measures. The authors report that the monetary policy response to...

Significant volumes of Structural and Cohesion Funds have been pre-allocated but remain undisbursed or uncommitted. In Portugal, unused funds amount to 9.3 percent of GDP, in Greece close to 7 percent, and in central and eastern European countries about 15 percent. These funds should be part of...