The recent reforms in the European economic governance framework add to the Stability and Growth pact requirements for establishing a new macroeconomic surveillance mechanism for both euro area and non-euro area countries. The early identification and the prevention of imbalances are of vital...

President Biden signed a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package (the “American Rescue Plan”) on March 11, 2021. Without a corresponding increase in taxes, this plan has set off alarm bells for those concerned about the expansion of government deficits and debt. Mainstream economists have raised...

I utilize a novel data on proprietary servicer call transcripts to investigate strategic borrower responses to mortgage forbearance program (13% with only 1.5% unemployed) contained in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. I document selective verification of unemployment...

Research in Economics on COVID-19 posits an economy subject to disease dynamics, which are often seriously misspecified in terms of speed and scale. Using a social planner problem, we show that such misspecifications lead to misguided policy. Erroneously characterizing a relatively slow-moving...

We show the recovery in consumer spending in the United Kingdom through the second half of 2020 is unevenly distributed across regions. We utilise Fable Data: a real-time source of consumption data that is a highly correlated, leading indicator of Bank of England and Office for National...

We find UK “local lockdowns” of cities and small regions, focused on limiting how many people a household can interact with and in what settings, are effective in turning the tide on rising positive COVID-19 cases. Yet, by focusing on household mixing within the home, these local lockdowns...

The government debt-to-GDP ratios in the majority of euro area economies, including Spain, are at very high levels according to the available historical records. Economic research is conclusive in pointing out that bearing high levels of public debt ratios for an extended period of time can be...

In Q3 2020, the pace of economic recovery in many countries turned out to be higher than expected. However, this growth only in part offset the deep recession that had been observed in Q2. In the majority of countries, output is well below its pre-crisis levels. The “second wave” of the...

How do pandemics affect for-profit and not-for-profit organizations differently? To address this question, we analyze optimal lockdowns in a two-sector continuous-time individual-based mean-field epidemiological model. We uncover a unique solution that depends on network structure, lockdown...

This paper analyzes the causes of the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone and examines the policy alternatives confronting euro area governments. It suggests that pooling fiscal risks, creating an EU Treasury and issuing jointly-backed euro bonds is an optimal solution and the inevitable...