While the ECB helped mitigate the euro crisis in the aftermath of Lehman, it has stretched its monetary mandate and moved into fiscal territory. This text describes and summarizes the crucial role played by the ECB in the intervention spiral resulting from its bid to manage the crisis. It also...

This paper advances the hypothesis that the EUS crisis was caused by German unification. The unification has implied a massive resource demand which parallels the US resource demand following Reagan's tax reforms in the eighties. The resource demand revised the German interest rates relative to...

Opening Europe's borders in 1993 makes the allocation of resources more vulnerable to differences in the national tax rates. The first part of the paper demonstrates that direct consumer purchases will imply distortions resulting from diverging VAT rates and it clarifies why the frequently cited...

Der Autor, ein renommierter Wirtschaftswissenschaftler, schildert die Ursachen der Eurokrise und schlägt unter anderem Schuldenschnitte und Ausgliederungen einzelner Länder aus dem Europäischen Währungssystem vor. (Jürgen Plieninger)

As a result of the Balassa effect relative prices change rapidly between and within the euro countries. Thus it is impossible to find a common monetary policy that will result in price stability in all countries. Based on empirical estimates of the Balassa model, the paper calculates a minimum...

Aufgrund des Balassa-Samuelson-Effekts werden die Länder im Euro-Gebiet in Zukunft sehr verschiedene Inflationsraten aufweisen. Wie auch immer das Inflationsziel der Europäische Zentralbank aussieht, es wird Länder mit Inflationsraten unter und über diesem Ziel geben. Nach unseren...

During the Interparliamentary Committee Meeting, a debate took place on two key policy issues: the relationship between effectiveness and political legitimacy of the new framework for European Governance and the difficult cohabitation between austerity and growth. The need for a more active role...