The feedback loop between sovereign and financial sector insolvency has been identified as a key driver of the European debt crisis and has motivated an array of policy proposals. We revisit this "doom loop" focusing on governments' incentives to default. To this end, we present a simple...

This article was invited from the author in response to the June 2022 Bruegel.com blog post by Zsolt Darvas – and see the separate article in this issue – about the decision to let Croatia into the euro area while keeping Bulgaria out; and intended to elicit a view from Bulgaria. The author...

Putting the high public debt ratios on a downward path after the surge during the pandemic and allocating sufficient resources to deliver on the green and digital transition will be among the priorities confronting the EU institutions emerging from the June 2024 European elections. After a long...

This paper formulates a dynamic Random Coefficient Model (RCM) to consider a set of popular determinants of public deficits in the EU-15 over the period 1971-2006, both at a country-specific level and from a population-wide perspective. Although the extent of government deficits and debt has...

This paper aims at the provision of applicable recommendations for institutions and actors involved regarding the EMU accession process both in CEE and in the euro-zone. In order to provide topical advice, the first part, on markets, will concentrate on theory and empirics of labour markets,...

The analysis of the macroeconomic impact of fiscal policies in the euro area has been traditionally limited by the absence of quarterly fiscal data. To overcome this problem, we provide two new databases in this paper. Firstly, we construct a quarterly database of euro area fiscal variables for...

The first decade of economic and monetary union in Europe (EMU) has been a huge success. EMU has significantly benefited its member countries and accelerated the European integration process. Imbalances within EMU - differences in growth, inflation, competitiveness, current account and budget...

This paper aims an empirical investigation of uncertainty in the Euro Zone as well as the US. For this purpose I conduct a factor analysis of uncertainty measures starting in 2001 until the end of 2011. I use survey-based data provided by the ECB and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia as...

Current developments in Greece make clear that the rules of the European Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) were neither strict enough nor enforced strictly enough. To deal with the ongoing fiscal exit and its related phenomena of crisis, we propose a new framework for fiscal policy consolidation...

This paper develops a market-based approach to implement so called Eurobonds, i.e. common sovereign debt securities of European Monetary Union (EMU) countries. By applying an asset-backed security (ABS) approach positive implications of a common bond can be achieved and negative incentives (e.g....