This study finds that equity returns in the banking sector in the wake of the Great Recession and the European sovereign debt crisis have been driven mainly by weak growth prospects and heightened sovereign risk and to a lesser extent, by deteriorating funding conditions and investor sentiment....

Using data from a unique survey of members of parliaments in France, Germany and Italy in 2018, we estimate the effects of three dimensions on EU and euro area fiscal reform preferences: nationality, political ideology, and populism. We predict and confirm that a German populist party on the...

This paper outlines some of the implications of factor market integration for fiscal policy in the countries of the EU and for the EU itself. It draws particular attention to the dynamic dimensions of factor market integration, and identifies some of the many issues for further research on these...

A rational financial constitution of the EU should be able to fulfil redistributive objectives at minimum costs. The present financial system of the Community is not compatible with this requirement. After the decisions of the European Council in Berlin on the Agenda 2000 the fundamental flaw of...

The paper applies standard public choice reasoning to the negotiations on EU enlargement and the Treaty of Nice. The starting point is the assumption that accession can only be successfully completed if the interests of decisive actors in present EU countries are respected. Decisive actors in...

Comparing the economic development and current situation of the internal markets of the U.S. and the EU, two things are noticeable. On the one hand, the EU is conducting massive regional policy programmes (notably the Structural Funds) to foster economic cohesion among the 27 nations belonging...

What began as a financial crisis in the United States in 2007-2008 quickly evolved into a massive crisis of the global real economy. We investigate the importance of the bank lending and firm borrowing channel in the international transmission of bank distress to the real economy - in...