This paper considers whether Ireland's sovereign bonds have decoupled from other euro area sovereigns (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain - the "periphery") with whom it was categorised during the sovereign bond market crisis of the early 2010s. Having initially reviewed yield and sovereign...

Even before the financial crisis of 2007/08, there were significant questions about Europe's long-term growth prospects. After a long period of catching up with US levels of labour productivity, euro area productivity growth had, from the mid-1990s onwards, fallen significantly behind. Using...

The likely substantial impact of Covid-19 related measures on the public finances of European countries has prompted an unprecedented call for new and significant policies at a European level to alleviate the pressures on individual member states. The administrative closures adopted across a...

Data from member states' Stability and Convergence Programmes from 2011 to 2018 are used to assess the cyclicality of government consumption in the EU after the European Semester took effect. Econometric estimations, which address endogeneity issues, find the intended (ex-ante) fiscal policy to...