Until the global financial crisis of 2007-08, inflation differentials in the euro area could beexplained by a general trend towards price level convergence; that is, countries with lowerprice levels tended to have higher inflation rates than countries with higher price levels.Since then, however,...

"Natural rate theory" - the application of the efficient market hypothesis to labour markets has guided economic policy since the 1970s and laid the foundations for the design of major European institutions in the 1990s. Unfettered markets were declared to be stable, and consequently public...