"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...

The process of European integration can be described as the increasing interdependence between economies at different levels of development and with different productive capabilities. It evolved from a pre-eminently political project to a ‘de-politicised’ management based on the automatism...

In the last decade, over half of the EU countries in the euro area or with currencies pegged to the euro were hit by large risk premium shocks. Previous papers have focused on the impact of these shocks on demand. This paper, by contrast, focuses on the impact on supply. We show that risk...

The financial crisis, originated from the collapse of US housing markets in 2008, reverberates around the world. Its destructive force was felt nowhere more keenly than Western Europe. Indeed, it continues to mire in financial volatility as the debt problem contagiously spreads around the...

In spite of all protestations and exhortations it is a fact that trade liberalization, the modern version of free trade, is caught in a crisis. Professor Detlef Lorenz is here analysing the causes of this crisis and suggesting alternatives for a future liberalization policy.