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1. Central Banks Caught Between Market Liquidity and Fiscal Disciplining: A Money View Perspective on Collateral Policy

Author:
Jakob Vestergaard and Daniela Gabor
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
Despite much attention to unconventional monetary policies after the financial crisis, the collateral policies of central banks are rarely discussed. And when they are, the haircuts applied to assets pledged to access central bank liquidity tend not to be analyzed. An exception to these trends is the recent work by Nyborg (2017), who argues that the collateral policies adopted by the European Central Bank (ECB) aggravated the sovereign debt crisis and put the survival of the euro at risk. Taking our point of departure in the money view literature (Mehrling 2011), we argue however that Nyborg’s critique of the ECB’s crisis response is misguided and that his proposal to deepen and reinforce the ECB’s role in the fiscal disciplining of member states would be procyclical and destabilizing. Through our analysis of Nyborg’s work and the ECBs crisis response, we identify core principles for countercyclical collateral policies suitable for market-based financial systems.
Topic:
International Political Economy, Global Markets, Central Bank, Macroeconomics, Money, Fiscal Policy, European Central Bank, and Banking
Political Geography:
Europe

2. A Silicon Curtain is Descending: Technological Perils of the Next 30 Years

Author:
Lindsay Gorman
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS)
Abstract:
pal story of 1989 in Europe is a story about technology – of radio and information crossing the East-West divide to bring down the Berlin Wall. Indeed, the post-communist narrative became that more connectivity and more connection meant more freedom and more democracy. It was on the wave of this narrative that the Internet became the world’s ultimate connector.1 It has brought globalization and international commerce in an unprecedented and unimaginable way, given activists a platform and a megaphone, and made information about democratic governance available to anyone with a router. Or almost anyone.
Topic:
International Political Economy, Science and Technology, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Europe

3. From the EMS to the EMU and...to China

Author:
Joseph Halevi
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The paper highlights the position of German authorities, showing that they were quite lucid about the fundamental weaknesses inherent in a process that separated monetary from fiscal policies by giving priority to the centralization of the former. Instead of repeating the well known critiques levelled against the EMU – for which readers are referred to the unsurpassed treatment by Stiglitz, the essay highlights the splintering of Europe in the way in which it has unfolded during the 1990s and in the first decade of the present millennium. In particular the early economic and political origins of the terminal crisis of Italy are located between the late 1980s and the 1990s. France is shown to belong increasingly to the so-called European periphery by virtue of a weakening industrial structure and persistent balance of payments deficits. The paper argues that France regains its central role by political means and through its weight as an active nuclear military power centered on maintaining its imperial interests and posture especially in Africa. The first decade of the present millennium is portrayed as the period in which a distinct German economic area had been formed in the midst of Europe with a strong drive to the east with an increasingly powerful gravitational pull towards the People’s Republic of China.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, Political Economy, History, and Macroeconomics
Political Geography:
Africa, China, Europe, Asia, Germany, and Global Focus

4. Straddling between Optimism and Mistrust

Author:
Julia Hamann and Sara Jakob
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
For many young people in France, President Macron’s reforms failed to alleviate their social anxieties. Unemployment remains high, employment conditions precarious, and what started as a protest against new fuel taxes quickly spilled over to other reform areas including social policy. Macron will need to gain the youngsters’ trust ahead of the European Parliament election – not least because its outcome will decisively shape his domestic credibility, and consequently, his political fate
Topic:
International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

5. Preparing for uncertainty

Author:
Gregory Claeys
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Bruegel
Abstract:
Memo to the president of the European Central Bank. Grégory Claeys, Maria Demertzis and Francesco Papadia present the challenges that the next ECB president will face during the upcoming mandate, reinventing monetary policy in a system riddled with uncertainties.
Topic:
International Relations and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

6. Europe – the global centre for excellent research

Author:
Michael Balternsperger
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Bruegel
Abstract:
This report, requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, analyses the EU’s potential to be a global centre of excellence for research as a driver of its future growth in a complex global S&T landscape, and how EU public resources can contribute to this
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Europe

7. Strengthening European Commercial Diplomacy: Prospects and Challenges

Author:
Andrea Maccanico
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The EU is involved in economic diplomacy since the establishment of the Single Market and the ensuing negotiations for trade and economic partnership agreements conducted by the EU’s Directorate-General for Trade (DG Trade) for all EU member states (MSs). European economic diplomacy (EED) is a new EU venture that aims to improve the coordination between EU institutions and MSs in an effort to enhance their economic and trade relations and strengthen their ability to compete with major countries such as the US, China and Russia.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Politics, Governance, Institutions, and Trade
Political Geography:
Europe and European Union

8. Brexit, Strategy, and the EU: Britain takes leave

Author:
Sven Biscop
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
The 100th Egmont Paper deals with an issue that, unfortunately, provides little cause for celebration: the impact of Brexit on European diplomacy and defence. Unless, as Sven Biscop argues, a new “special relationship” can be established between Britain and the EU, both London and Brussels will
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Affairs, and Brexit
Political Geography:
Europe

9. State contingent debt as insurance for euro-area sovereigns

Author:
Maria Demertzis and Stavros Zenios
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Bruegel
Abstract:
Since the financial crisis, EU countries' economies have recovered to the point that they are exiting their adjustment programmes. Institutional stability mechanisms have been improved at the European level, with the promotion of the banking union and the establishment of a European Monetary Fund, for instance. However, the authors argue that such crisis contingencies should include markets in their risk-sharing, which would require better coordination with institutions.
Topic:
International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

10. Earmarked Revenues: How the European Union Can Learn from US Budgeting Experience

Author:
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Few challenges facing the European Union—immigration pressures, the need to decrease security dependence on an increasingly erratic United States, and the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union (Brexit)—are compelling EU leaders to consider overhauling the revenue side of the European Union’s existing budget. To deal with these challenges in the future, the European Union will need resources—at a time when Europeans are increasingly skeptical about the effectiveness of budget-making in Brussels. Longstanding US budgetary procedures of trust fund accounting and earmarking government revenue towards specific priorities can provide a template for European policymakers. Shifting the EU budget towards more earmarked resources would reduce distrust among taxpayers by limiting Brussels’ spending discretion while focusing expenditures on specific challenges facing the European project.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Europe