The euro area's sovereign debt crisis continues though significant steps have been taken to resolve it. This paper proposes a comprehensive solution to the crisis based on three pillars: a plan to restore banking sector soundness in the whole euro area, a resolution of sovereign debt crisis...

Im Jahr 2000 konnte das hohe Wachstumstempo des Vorjahres nur noch im ersten Quartal gehalten werden. Die reale Bruttoinlandsproduktion expandierte aber dank des hohen Überhangs zu Jahresbeginn noch um 4,1 %. Die Lage auf dem Arbeitsmarkt verbesserte sich weiter. Die Arbeitslosenquote ging im...

This background paper describes in detail the assumptions and calculations behind the results presented in Zsolt Darvas, Jean Pisani-Ferry and André Sapir 'A comprehensive approach to the euro-area debt crisis', Bruegel Policy Brief No 2011/02, February 2011. An assessment of the results and...

Was Spanish fiscal policy destabilizing? We estimate policy reaction functions and test the impact of fiscal shocks on growth volatility over the period 19501998. We find that a transition from pro-cyclical to countercyclical fiscal policy occurred in the late years of the Franco regime,...

The European Union is currently negotiating free trade agreements, called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), with African countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. The paper empirically assesses the impact of the EPAs...

Using quantile regression and a rich cross section data set for German manufacturing plants this paper documents that the impact of plant characteristics on export activities varies along the conditional size distribution of the export/sales ratio.

Gains from productivity and knowledge transmission arising from the presence of foreign firms has received a good deal of empirical attention, but micro-foundations for this mechanism are weak . Here we focus on production by foreign experts who may train domestic unskilled workers who work with...