The critical role of current account imbalances (CAI) is widely shared in the consensus narratives of the European crisis that followed the Great Recession. On the basis of this interpretation, new EU initiatives raised, in particular the so-called “Six Pack” adoption in 2011 and the...

In the current debate on the reasons and implications of the Greek and Irish euro crisis, the intra-European current account imbalances have gained rising attention. Whereas Greece and Ireland struggle for austerity in private and public spending, Germany is urged to reduce its current account...

We estimate a medium-scale DSGE model for the euro area in an open economy framework. The model includes structural trends on all variables, which allow us to estimate on gross data. We first provide a theoretical balanced growth path consistent with permanent productivity shocks, inflation...

The objective of this paper is to explore the consequences of the correction of Euro area trade imbalances on real exchange rates. This analysis requires one additional dimension with respect to the standard Global Imbalances framework à la Obstfeld and Rogoff (2005), since the adjustment takes...

The paper examines the extent to which current account imbalances of euro area countries are related to intra-euro area factors and to external trade shocks. We argue that the traditional explanations for the rising imbalances are correct, but are incomplete. We uncover a large impact of...

This paper explores the extent to which financial liberalization in the euro area had a differentiated impact on members' private consumption patterns and in turn on their current account positions as a function of who got indebted in the first place. Theoretically, it builds on an...

We estimate a panel VAR model for the euro area to quantitatively asses the contribution of the TARGET2 system to the propagation of different types of structural economic shocks as well as to the historical evolution of aggregate economic activity in euro area member countries. Our results...

Macroeconomic imbalances in the EMU are at the heart of the current crisis. A widely popular explanation for the high current account deficits in the Southern European countries is that they lack a large, competitive and export-oriented industrial sector. The paper tests the hypothesis that...

To handle the sovereign debt crisis in general and macroeconomic imbalances in particular the leading EU institutions (the Troika) adopted two broad approaches: The short-term approach is based on enhancing the Stability and Growth Pact and to imposing fiscal austerity on crisis countries. The...