"This paper deals with potential instabilities in the Eurozone stemming from an insufficient interplay between monetary policy and reform effort on the one hand and the emergence of intra-Euro area divergences on the other. As a first step, we assess the effect of EMU on structural reform and...

In the aftermath of the financial crisis trust, in the European Central Bank (ECB) has reached an historical low. Taking panel data and using a fixed effects DFGLS estimation for a 12–country sample over the time period 1999 to 2011 with a total of 312 observations, this paper detects a...

Trust in the ECB has fallen to unprecedented lows in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Up to the start of the recession in 2008, trust levels in the ECB were moderately high and trust in the ECB was not affected by business cycle variables such as growth and inflation. This changed...

We analyze the benefits and costs of a non-euro country opting-in to the banking union. The decision to opt-in depends on the comparison between the assessment of the banking union attractiveness and the robustness of a national safety net. The benefits of opting-in are still only potential and...