This contribution develops a blueprint for a European fiscal union. The proposal addresses the shortcomings of most other reform designs which do not offer a solution for insolvent or noncooperative euro countries. We suggest a design which combines fiscal insurance with an orderly procedure to...

A mechanism to restructure the debt of an insolvent euro country is a missing element in the emerging institutional architecture of the euro area. The introduction of an insolvency procedure for sovereigns faces a dilemma: In the foreseeable future, its introduction would risk pushing Europe...

In this analysis, the informational content of central bank rhetoric is assessed based on the experience with the ECB since 1999. Among the ECB’s communication channels we focus on the monthly press conferences. Based on a counting of certain signal words we construct a wording indicator...

We analyze data from an author‐conducted survey of members of the French and German parliaments on European Monetary Union reform preferences. We consider three potential drivers of preferences: nationality, ideology, and personal characteristics. For European Monetary Union policies like...

The official view on ECB monetary policy claims that monetary decisions are based solely on average data for the euro zone and that diverging regional developments are disregarded. However, experience from other two tier central banks and theoretical considerations suggest that this official...

Although demographic change leaves pay-as-you-go pension systems unsustainable, reforms, such as a higher pension age, are highly unpopular. This contribution looks into the role of intrinsic motivation as a driver for pension reform acceptance. Theoretical reasoning suggests that this driver...