The interest rate represents an important monetary policy tool to steer investment in order to reach price stability. Therefore, implications of the exact form and magnitude of the interest rate-investment nexus for the European Central Bank's effectiveness in a low interest rate environment...

Financial crisis can trigger policy reversals, i.e. they can lead to a process of re- regulation of financial markets. Using a recent comprehensive dataset on financial liberalization across 94 countries for the period between 1973 and 2015, we formally test the validity of this prediction for...

Starting July the 1st 1997, Bulgaria adopted a Currency Board (CB) monetary system. This paper aims at investigating if the adoption of the CB monetary system, which involves the cost of loosing monetary autonomy, has provided a relatively better (with respect to other CEEC) monetary integration...

This research note discusses the Euro crisis in Greece in light of the referendum of July the 5th. It lays out the social and political costs of a GREXIT, but also of a continuing austerity policy. It proposes a reform policy fostering growth in Greece and discusses the role of conditionality....

This paper quantifies the extent of heterogeneity in consumption responses to changes in real interest rates and house prices in the four largest economies in the euro area: France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. We first calibrate a life-cycle incomplete-markets model with a financial asset and...

The effect of demographic change on the labor force and on fiscal revenues is topical in light of potential pension shortfalls. This paper evaluates the effect of demographic changes between 2010 and 2030 on labor force participation and government budgets in the EU-27. Our analysis involves the...

This paper connects two salient economic features: (i) Fiscal shocks have asymmetric effects across business cycle phases (Gechert et al., 2019); (ii) Okun's coefficient is time varying and may be unstable. The intertwined dynamic behavior of fiscal shocks and unemployment-output trade-offs are...

The onset of the housing and subsequent financial crisis in 2008 marked the steepest economic downturn in the United. States, since the Great Depression in the late 1920s and 1930s. This most recent financial crisis has been characterized by massive layoffs and displacement. Given the depth of...