The European Central Bank's Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme was a politically-pragmatic tool to diffuse the euro-area crisis. But it did not deal with the fundamental incompleteness of the European monetary union. As such, it blurred the boundary between monetary and fiscal...

We study the vulnerability of 130 banks directly supervised by the European Central Bank's Single Supervisory Mechanism. Illustrative stress tests using banks' balance sheet data reveal that significant stress prevails in the euro area's smaller and medium-sized banks, many of them located in...

To compensate for the inflexibility of fixed exchange rates, the euro area needs flexibility through a system of orderly debt restructuring. With virtually no room for macroeconomic manoeuvring since the crisis onset, fiscal austerity has been the main instrument for achieving reductions in...

This paper attempts to explain the recent rise and differentiation of sovereign spreads across the countries of the eurozone. Following the onset of the subprime crisis in July 2007, spreads rose but mainly on account of common global factors. The rescue of Bear Stearns in March 2008 marked a...

Global excess liquidity is sometimes believed to limit sovereign monetary policy even in large economies, including the euro area. There is much discussion about what constitutes global excess liquidity and our approach adjusts liquidity for longer-term interest rate and output effects. We find...

Monetary aggregates continue to play an important role in the ECB''s policy strategy. This paper revisits the case for money, surveying the ongoing theoretical and empirical debate. The key conclusion is that an exclusive focus on non-monetary factors alone may leave the ECB with an incomplete...

The likely enlargement of euro-area membership will radically change the environment under which monetary policy will be made in the euro area. Within less than a decade, the number of member countries in the euro area could more than double, with the vast majority of accession countries being...

The budget is an expression of political rather than economic priorities. We confirm this proposition for a group of new and potential members of the European Union, finding that politics dominates. The contemporary practice of democracy can increase budget deficits through not only ideological...