Economic recovery post-COVID-19 will be structured around answering a number of fundamental questions. It is necessary to take stock of the extent of the recovery and of the transformation our economies have experienced in the last year and a half.

By April 2021, the COVID-19 crisis in Europe had reached a magnitude that, in the eyes of some observers, either deepened lingering divides and threatened the EU's very existence, or, conversely, forced the Union to address the fundamental flaws of its euro area and provided an opportunity to...

A number of tools have been suggested for solving the European sovereign debt crisis, in particular the options of leveraging the EFSF/ESM, introducing Eurobonds and a European Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Euro-TARP). However, it is unclear how these instruments will work, given jittery...

One possible solution to the sovereign debt crisis is the European Redemption Pact (ERP) proposed by the German Council of Economic Experts. The ERP provides sustainable financing conditions for participating sovereigns to facilitate bringing public debt ratios below the reference value of 60%...

Economic inequalities are engendered by a complex process, characterised by several steps and involving the interaction of several factors. The best indicator of individual economic well-being is disposable equivalised income. Evidence shows that welfare states retain a crucial function in...

The economic crisis has given rise to significant challenges to the welfare state. Given that welfare expenses account for a large proportion of all state spending in the member countries of the European Union, reducing government spending means cutting welfare measures. Yet social protection,...

The German change of attitude concerning fiscal policy and the mutualisation of efforts to fight the pandemic is driven by self-interest, and as such might be structural.

Too much blood in terms of unemployment and sweat in terms of intellectual effort has been spent on trying to determine the amount of fiscal space that economies have – our policy focus instead should be on what to do with the fiscal space that almost all advanced economies (and a surprising...