This paper provides an assessment of Russia’s long-term growth prospects. In particular, it addresses the question of the medium- and long-term sustainability of the country’s currently high growth rates. Starting from the notion that Russia’s fast economic expansion in recent years has...

The EU candidate and potential candidate countries have made considerable progress in economic transition and integration into the world economy within less than two decades. Nevertheless, gaps in terms of income per capita relative to the euro area remain large. This suggests that the...

The extensive public support measures for the financial sector have been key for the management of the current financial crisis. This paper gives a detailed description of the measures taken by central banks and governments and attempts a preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of such...

This paper provides an assessment of the impact of the covered bond purchase programme (hereafter referred to as the CBPP) relative to its policy objectives. The analysis presented on the impact of the CBPP on both the primary and secondary bond markets indicates that the Programme has been an...

The destructive potential of the sovereign debt crisis of the euro area has been slowly abating since last summer, but still remains considerable. One reason for it is the sheer complexity of the crisis, which brings together several harmful factors, some long-standing, others more recent, like...

Euro area countries exhibited modest convergence prior to the financial crisis and diverged thereafter. Such divergence has been examined from many angles, and various narratives of the crisis have developed. Surprisingly, the gradual transformation of the economic structures of euro area...

Structural policies in the euro area are of great interest for the Eurosystem, particularly as they can support the smooth functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the effectiveness of monetary policy. This paper adopts a broad definition of structural policies, analysing not...

This paper analyses real income convergence in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe (CESEE) to the most advanced EU economies between 2000 and 2016. The relevance of this topic stems both from the far-reaching implications of real income convergence for economic welfare and the importance...

This paper studies the short-term and long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for productivity in Europe. Aggregate and sectoral evidence is complemented by firm-level data-based findings obtained from a large microdistributed exercise. Productivity trends during the COVID-19 pandemic...

The aim of this report is to foster a better understanding of past trends in, and drivers of, productivity growth in the countries of the European Union (EU) and of the interplay between productivity and monetary policy. To this end, a group of experts from 15 national central banks and the...