There is already a substantial literature documenting the fact that low yield currencies typically appreciate during times of global financial stress and behave as safe havens. The main objective of this paper is to find out what the fundamentals of safe haven currencies are. We analyse a large...

We test whether two key elements of the EU and euro area economic governance framework, the Stability and Growth Pact and the Lisbon Strategy, have had any impact on macroeconomic outcomes. We test this proposition using a difference-in-difference approach on a panel of over 30 countries, some...

Do oil shocks matter for exchange rates? This paper addresses this question based on data on real and nominal exchange rates as well as an exchange market pressure index for 44 advanced and emerging countries. We identify three structural shocks (oil supply, global demand, and oil specific...

We study the determinants of trust in the ECB as measured by the European Commission's Eurobarometer survey. The formulation of the corresponding question in this survey is very general, and compatible with very different notions of "trust" by respondents. In particular, the survey does not ask...

In this paper we attempt to evaluate the quantitative impact of financial shocks on key indicators of real activity and financial conditions. We focus on financial shocks as they have received wide attention in the recent literature and in the policy debate after the global financial crisis. We...

This paper uses Eurobarometer survey data from 26 EU countries to evaluate whether the general public cares about financial stability and imbalances over and above their effects on key macroeconomic variables such as unemployment and inflation. I confirm previous results in the literature that...

This paper is an event study focusing on the global effects of the euro debt crisis in 2010-2013. After identifying 18 key exogenous crisis events, I analyse the impact on equity returns, exchange rates and government bond yields in 12 advanced and 13 emerging countries. The main effect of euro...

In this paper, we address the question of whether cross-country differences in civic capital, notably interpersonal trust, have contributed to the build-up of macroeconomic imbalances over the last three decades. We analyse the link between a stylised index of economic imbalances (a combination...

In this paper we study the impact of shocks to global risk and global risk aversion (such as Lehman) as well as shocks with a more idiosyncratic nature (such as the euro debt crisis) on cross border portfolio flows, taking the perspective of foreign investors. We find robust evidence of...

This paper evaluates the impact of the rise of large emerging manufacturing exporters such as China and India on economic growth in advanced countries. After illustrating the possible theoretical channels, I estimate a growth regression based on 3-year average data augmented with...