Greece has reached a point where, under any plausible macroeconomic scenario, public debt will continue growing faster than GDP. Fiscal consolidation alone cannot close the solvency gap. A substantial reduction in the stock of debt is needed. Even post-debt restructuring, there is no guarantee...

How much did fiscal policy contribute to euro area real GDP growth during the Great Recession? We estimate that discretionary fiscal measures have increased annualized quarterly real GDP growth during the crisis by up to 1.6 percentage points. We obtain our result by using an extended version of...

The paper compares the boom-and-bust cycles in Japan and Europe with respect to the reasons for excessive booms, the characteristics of the crises, and the (potential) effects of the crisis therapies. As in Japan the consequence of expansionary monetary and fiscal policies is the hysteresis of...

This paper studies theoretically and empirically why and how labor policies may reduce productivity and employment in order to stabilize labor incomes and redistribute resources. It proposes a specific stylized model where the tradeoffs facing labor policies are influenced by structural factors,...

Did austerity cause Brexit? This paper shows that the rise of popular support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), as the single most important correlate of the subsequent Leave vote in the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum, along with broader measures of political dissatisfaction, are...

This paper explores the connection between "zombie" firms (firms that would typically exit in a competitive market) and bank health and the consequences for aggregate productivity in 11 European countries. Controlling for cyclical effects, the results show that zombie firms are more likely to be...

We extend household-level data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey using aggregate series and micro-simulations to investigate heterogeneity in the euro area. We quantify shocks to wealth, income and financial pressure faced by various categories of households since the onset of...

This paper exploits a unique cross-country, firm-level survey to study the responses of European firms to the sharp demand and credit contraction triggered by the global Great Recession of 2009. The analysis reveals that cost reduction — particularly labour cost reduction through the...

This paper is an event study focusing on the global effects of the euro debt crisis in 2010-2013. After identifying 18 key exogenous crisis events, I analyze the impact on equity returns, exchange rates and government bond yields in 12 advanced and 13 emerging countries. The main effect of euro...