There is thus a fundamental credibility issue about the willingness of the ECB to be a lender of last resort in the government bond markets. This will continue to make the eurozone a fragile construction. As a result, the possibility of a future euro crisis cannot be excluded.

To boost investments into sustainability, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) - a crucial part of the economy - must play a role. The current sustainable finance framework focuses on capital markets. But SMEs normally get external finance from banks, and bank-based financial systems work...

While macroprudential policy has mostly focused on the role of banks, we argue that pension funds are also important for financial stability. Drawing on previous research on pension funds, we explain how their actions can have a vital impact on other financial institutions as well as on...

"Natural rate theory" - the application of the efficient market hypothesis to labour markets has guided economic policy since the 1970s and laid the foundations for the design of major European institutions in the 1990s. Unfettered markets were declared to be stable, and consequently public...

While the global financial crisis had a strong impact on economic activity in Germany, the impact of the euro area crisis on economic activity in Germany has so far been relatively mild. Trade flows by region reveal that German firms have recently redirected their exports towards the remaining...

The process of European integration can be described as the increasing interdependence between economies at different levels of development and with different productive capabilities. It evolved from a pre-eminently political project to a ‘de-politicised’ management based on the automatism...