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...

This paper provides an overview of the complex conceptual and practical challenges that emerging market economies face as they attempt to reform their frameworks for financial regulation. These economies are striving to balance the quest for financial stability with the imperatives of financial...

This paper focuses on the euro area wage structure and its potential determinants from a sectoral viewpoint. Merging information from the OECD Structural Analysis database with data from the EU Labour Force Survey, we construct a cross-country panel of 22 industries in 8 euro area countries for...

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 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...

For more than two decades now, current-account imbalances are a crucial issue in the international policy debate as they threaten the stability of the world economy. More recently, the government debt crisis of the European Union shows that internal current account imbalances inside a currency...

We analyze different alternatives how a common unemployment insurance system for the euro area (EA) could be designed and assess their effectiveness to act as an insurance device in the presence of asymmetric macroeconomic shocks. Running counterfactual simulations based on micro data for the...

This paper examines the occurrence of structural breaks in European unemployment associated with major events experienced by the European economies at an institutional level: the creation of the European and Monetary Union (EMU) in 1999, and the Euro/financial crisis in 2008-2009, which was...