A monetary union among autonomous countries cannot simultaneously maintain an independent monetary policy, national fiscal sovereignty and a no-bailout clause. These three features make up an impossible trinity, and attempts to preserve all three concurrently will ultimately end in failure. In...

While the tax reforms which have been instituted as part of the Structural Adjustment Programmes in ACP countries primarily aim at simplifying tax systems and raising their efficiency, they are also intended to improve distributional equity. This article assesses the equity effects of taxation...

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...