In 1903, the world's first garden city was founded in Hertfordshire, England. The utopian dream to combine the best of town and country living was about to be progressed from concept to reality. A hundred and ten years later, Letchworth Garden City is a thriving town of 33,000 people who enjoy...

Prior to EMU, fiscal policy within the EU was disciplined by the threat of exclusion of the single currency; post-EMU, discipline has been exerted through the provisions of the Stability and Growth Pact. In this paper, we contrast the discipline induced by the two separate regimes on three...

We explore whether the ECB’s interest rate setting behaviour changed during the financial crisis by estimating reaction functions over the period 1999–2010, allowing for a smooth transition from one set of parameters to another. The estimates show a swift change in the months following the...

We estimate a reaction function for the European Central Bank (ECB) using forecasts of economic growth and inflation as regressors. We detect a shift after Lehman Brothers failed in September 2008 when the pre-crisis reaction function indicates that the zero lower bound may become a constraint....

This unique and fascinating book illustrates that the ‘credit crunch’ and the ensuing financial and economic crisis of 2007–2009 did not only strike hard at the economy in the Western world, but also at its policymakers, at economics as a scientific discipline and, more...

This paper evaluates the cyclicality, inertia and effect of EU accession on fiscal policy in Central and Eastern Europe using a real time dataset. Budget balances are found to react in a stabilising way to economic activity, and they are less inert than is typically found in Western Europe....

Prior to EMU, fiscal policy within the EU was disciplined by the threat of exclusion of the single currency; post-EMU, discipline has been exerted through the provisions of the Stability and Growth Pact. In this paper, we contrast the discipline induced by the two separate regimes on three...