This study analyzes the progress in information and communication technologies (ICT) in eleven MED countries and how they compare to the rest of the world in terms of sector's sophistication and development. In recent years, most countries of this region opened up their markets for multiple...

The present paper contains a brief presentation and analysis, in a historical perspective through the lens of the recent major crises, of the legal framework governing the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), as well as current developments and challenges ahead. It is structured in three...

The issue of sustainability has hardly left any sector or area untouched. This also applies to financial markets: the EU Member States are trying to transform their economies into net-zero carbon ones, the Commission has presented a comprehensive action plan on sustainable finance, and the ECB...

The loan impairment rules recently introduced by IFRS 9 require banks to estimate their future credit losses by using forward-looking information. We use supervisory loan-level data from Germany to investigate how banks apply their reporting discretion and adjust their lending upon the...

A striking asymmetry defines the European Central Bank (ECB)’s approach to democratic accountability. Today’s ECB makes choices of a more complex and discretionary nature than originally envisaged for it by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. At the same time, the central bank continues to hew...

In the early 1950s, the drive to find a practical solution to European antagonisms led to the construction of the first Common Market at the European scale, between Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. At the heart of the Coal and Steel Community, was the idea that...