Exchange rate policy is of primordial economic importance given its impact on price stability, real growth and regional cohesion. In this article, we argue that the euro area thus needs a true exchange rate policy, to which it is entitled by law, but that it finds itself unable to implement for...

Environmental policy is an art of execution. Hence the fact that European Union member states have recently managed to agree on targets of emissions to fight climate change leaves open the question of how they will meet them. Economics can not but embrace the scientific consensus on climate...

This article attempts to survey a large part of the growing literature on trust, trying to circumscribe this imprecise concept and especially its relations with economic theory. After reviewing different notions of trust ? particularized, generalized, trust in institutions ? it tries to explore...

This article presents a survey of some contemporary questions at the crossroads of environmental and social issues. It starts by exploring the case of developing countries, where poverty and environmental degradations are closely related and fuelled by bad governance. The article then considers...

This article is a revised version of the lecture Edmund S. Phelps delivered in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10, 2006, when he received the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The modern economy, where fully adopted, has been transformative for nations ? but...

Very much like the Lisbon Agenda, the European strategy against climate change suffers from a discrepancy between high ambitions and weak collective instruments. As France takes the EU Presidency in July 2008, one of its priorities is precisely to make some significant progress in reducing the...

Economic performance has been feeble in the Euro area since the monetary union process was put in motion in the early 1990s. While the cause for this under-performance remains subject to debate, we argue in this paper that the rules and institutions governing the Euro area are clearly not...

While most continental European economies have exhibit deceiving outcomes for two decades, it seems necessary ? and it reveals fruitful ? to elaborate an « institutional hypothesis » to understand this failure. Our central reasoning is the following : it is in the absence or the muffling of...