We find in cross-sectional investigations that wage restraint is either unchanged or increased following EMU in the vast majority of countries. This contradicts the predictions of a widely-cited family of models of labor market bargaining. In those, Germany would have been expected to display...

It must not be easy being a rating agency. Where corporate debt is concerned, the major credit rating agencies (“CRAs”) are said to be too slow and lagging the market. When the topic is structured finance, the agencies are said to inflate ratings to attract business. And when the subject is...

The paper discusses the most noteworthy measures taken or yet to be taken by the EU to combat the coronavirus crisis. Basically, the measures fall into four categories: (i) flexible application of EU rules that could hinder member states in their strenuous efforts to save their national...

The European Commission (EC) has long intended to play a leadership role in setting a pan-European competition policy; yet, both centralized and decentralized tendencies have been manifest in the European context for competition policy. It is not clear the whether these leadership intentions...

Der im März 2012 von 25 EU-Mitgliedstaaten unterzeichnete Fiskalvertrag gerät vor dem Hintergrund der europäischen Staatsschuldenkrise immer wieder in die Kritik. Im Kern handelt es sich bei dem Vertragswerk um eine Konkretisierung und Verschärfung des Stabilitäts- und Wachstumspakts, indem...

This article examines two distinct types of narratives prevalent in academic writing and popular press regarding the causes of the crisis in Europe. The first type, a morality tale, attributes the crisis to profligate southern states that refused to abide by the strictures of the Stability and...