For a decade now Japan has virtually stagnated. Some blame this on a succession of unfavourable shocks that began with the bursting of the "bubble" economy. More appropriate macroeconomic policies, targeting inflation and/or the exchange rate, could, in this view, lead to a revival. Others argue...

Over the last quarter century, public finances have been under pressure in most OECD countries as deficits and debts rose under the pressure of relatively slow growth and high interest rates. This, in turn, has affected the welfare state, since efforts at containing deficits have often been...

The past century saw unprecedented rises in life expectancy and living standards. It also witnessed major structural changes, the rise of "big government" and two globalizations. Yet, the century's economic history was marred by policy and market failures resulting in a massive world-wide...

The orthodox theory of economic growth has long been unable to explain some real world "stylized.facts" such as the reasons for continued long-run expansion, the absence of convergence in per capita incomes across rich and poor countries and the frequent presence of medium-term changes in growth...

We describe in this essay why the gold standard and the euro are extreme forms of fixed exchange rates, and how these policies had their most potent effects in the worst peaceful economic periods in modern times. While we are lucky to have avoided another catastrophe like the Great Depression in...

This article takes stock of the literature and debate over European monetary unification. In contrast to other papers, where it is argued that the issues and prospects remain shrouded in uncertainty, I argue that in a number of important areas, a reasonable degree of consensus now exists, as the...

We analyse the institutional determinants of economic performance, taking European labour-market institutions as a case in point. European economic growth after the Second World War was based on Fordist technologies, a setting to which the continent's institutions of solidaristic wage bargaining...