This paper investigates determinants of convergence in GDP per capita in the euro area and the EU between 1995 and 2021. It finds that the COVID-19 crisis temporarily slowed convergence but the estimated negative impact is significantly smaller than during the global financial crisis. Diverging...

The decline of "natural real interest rates" during the last three decades is a common phenomenon in all advanced economies and can be explained by a number of structural factors: the downward trend in potential growth; population ageing, which has led to higher savings rates in many countries;...

Because they exert cross-border spillover effects, fiscal policies of individual EU member states are a common concern for the entire EU.

Faced with the impossibility of reaching a political agreement to review the fiscal treaties, the Commission could limit itself to applying the current rules with flexibility, which would maintain an ambiguous situation: much ado about nothing.

There are many reasons to reform the Stability and Growth Pact, but that reform is no panacea. This is because the euro area periphery has increasingly entered a debt conundrum.

Experience after the establishment of EMU shows that the behaviour of private consumers differs considerably among member countries and that average and marginal propensities to consume are fairly heterogeneous. In particular, there are clear differences between Germany and the rest of the euro...

This paper presents three simple policies for overcoming the crisis that can be implemented immediately and require none of the moves such as national guarantees or fiscal transfers to which many Europeans are opposed, nor moves towards federation that entail Treaty changes, which electorates...