The turmoil affecting southern euro area countries (notably Greece) has ushered in the second phase of the financial crisis: that of sovereign default. It is now time to look for a new framework that allows the Union to deal with the failure of one of its members. In this new CEPS Policy Brief,...

The recent financial crisis was caused by a combination of asset price bubbles, mainly in the real estate sector, and a credit bubble that led to excessive leverage. A recurrent theme of this paper is that an appropriate assessment of the crisis should be made in light of the bubble that...

The ECB has been arguing in the past that since there is no trade-off between price stability and financial stability, the pursuit of price stability is the best a central bank can do to also maintain financial stability. We argue that there is a potential trade-off between price stability and...

Die Bilanz des Europäischen Zentralbanksystems (EZBS) ist um 50% länger als notwendig, und da die europäischen Notenbanken ihre Bilanzen so undurchsichtig wie möglich gestalten, ist es schwer, genau festzustellen, woher die überflüssigen Positionen stammen. Daniel Gros, stellvertretender...

The Lisbon strategy of the year 2000 failed: the share of R&D spending in Europe remains below the 3 percent of GDP target, far behind that of the US and China. EU companies spend much less on R&D than their US peers and concentrate their innovation activities on midtech instead high-tech...

This study investigates the shock-absorbing properties of a banking union. It makes a detailed comparison between the way in which banking unions have absorbed regional financial shock at the federal level in the USA, but have led to severe regional (national) financial dislocation and tensions...