This paper analyses how Italy's decades-long decline turned the country into the euro area's Achilles heel, the most vulnerable spot in the common currency. We use a structuralist framework to synthesise different (competing) supply-side and demand-side explanations, accounting for long-term...

We study the effects of financial frictions on firm exit when firms face large liquidity shocks. We develop a simple model of firm cost-minimization that introduces a financial friction that limits firms' borrowing capacity to smooth temporary shocks to liquidity. In this framework, firm exit...

As governments spend unprecedented sums of public money on pandemic related rescue and recovery measures, while humankind is facing mounting long-term challenges - and above all the climate crisis -, the question whether and to what extent COVID-19 recovery programmes contribute to countries'...

While the COVID-19 pandemic had a large and asymmetric impact on firms, many countries quickly enacted massive business rescue programs which are specifically targeted to smaller firms. Little is known about the effects of such policies on business entry and exit, factor reallocation, and...

While the COVID-19 pandemic had a large and asymmetric impact on firms, many countries quickly enacted massive business rescue programs which are specifically targeted to smaller firms. Little is known about the effects of such policies on business entry and exit, factor reallocation, and...

Section 2 of the Sherman Act bans monopolization of any part of interstate commerce. This essay draws on macroeconomic theory and the New Deal experience with partial repeal of the antitrust laws and cartelization of labor to examine the relationship between macroeconomic stability and the...

To understand the diverse impact of the crisis across emerging market countries, we explore the role of two shocks - the collapse in trade and the sharp decline in financial flows - in the transmission of the crisis from advanced economies to emerging market countries. We first develop a simple...

In the 1970s the world experienced a serious economic crisis, which was widely attributed to the need to recycle petro dollars. In the 2000s the same need for recycling existed to an even greater degree because of large Chinese trade surpluses that added to those of petro producers.Some analysts...

During the 2008 Great Recession, the adoption of counter-cyclical economic policies made the Brazilian economy more resilient. However, a noteworthy shift occurred in 2014, marked by a deterioration in Brazil's macroeconomic landscape, primarily driven by a worsening debt situation....

The Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic were two major shocks to the world economy in the 21st century. In this study, we analyze the patterns of recessions and recoveries of 101 advanced and developing economies. We identify the turning points of recessions and expansions between...