In geographically segmented credit markets, local real estate booms can deteriorate the funding conditions for small manufacturing firms and undermine their competitiveness. Using exogenous variation in the administrative land supply across 172 Chinese cities, we show that higher predicted real...

This book explores what happened in the transition economies of China, Vietnam and Myanmar from both macro and micro perspectives, and questions whether the governments of these countries are capable of implementing effective reform and transformation

The economic tradition of ordoliberalism, understood as the theoretical and policy ideas of the Freiburg School, emerged in 1930s and 1940s Germany. In the years thereafter, it was quickly superseded by Keynesianism and other theories imported from the English-speaking world. The crisis in...

The paper analyses theoretically what role fiscal councils could play and surveys empirically the activities of existing councils. Case studies of the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council and the UK Office for Budget Responsibility are done. It is concluded that fiscal councils should be advisory,...

German policy during the Eurozone crisis supposedly follows an ordoliberal tradition. In this paper, we discuss to what extent this contention holds and to what extent Germany pragmatically responded to different crisis phenomena. A proper analysis of ordoliberal thinking reveals that the...

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...

The Report on the State of the European Union examines the progress of European integration and focuses on economic aspects of the process. This third volume in the series explores the EU in light of the current crisis

The transformation from a closed and inward-looking economy to an active integration into the European Union is one which a number of countries are facing. This book examines the experience of southern European countries where such transformation has occurred within a short space of time and has...

This volume brings together contributions on the major economic policy issues which have opened up as a result of the immanent process of European Union Enlargement. The issues analyzed range from modelling and analyzing the costs and benefits of enlargement, to challenges for macroeconomic...

Within the New Consensus Macroeconomics, monetary policy is upgraded while fiscal policy is downgraded. This new monetary policy has been the main instrument of policy under the guise of inflation targeting, an approach pursued by a number of central banks worldwide. This book raises problems...