History

The financial crisis of 2008 was unforeseen to a significant extent. One reason is that the dominant academic theories influencing political decision makers ignore recent advances and instead rely largely on models and decision science dating back to the Second World War.

A look behind the scenes of the Greek referendum and what could happen next.

A survey on behalf of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung indicates that German economists are much more American in their thinking than is presumed – with a rising trend.

The ECB has decided to maintain its current level of emergency liquidity to Greece (ECB 2015). By refusing to extend additional emergency liquidity, the ECB has decided that Greece must leave the Eurozone. This may be a legal necessity or a political judgement call, or both. Anyway, it raises a host of unpleasant questions about the treatment of a member country and about the independence of the central bank.

This paper studies the long-run impact of public debt expansion on economic growth and investigates whether the debt-growth relation varies with the level of indebtedness.

Greece: reculer pour mieux sauter

Exploiting three earthquakes in Italy as quasi-experiments, we analyse the response of homeowners’ consumption to transfers targeted to finance housing repair and reconstruction. To the extent that funds are made available up-front, these transfers are akin to loans, mainly affecting the liquidity of households’ wealth

This paper studies the long-run impact of public debt expansion on economic growth and investigates whether the debt-growth relation varies with the level of indebtedness.

The rising crescendo of bickering and acrimony within Europe might seem to outsiders to be the inevitable result of the bitter endgame playing out between Greece and its creditors. In fact, European leaders are finally beginning to reveal the true nature of the ongoing debt dispute, and the answer is not pleasant: it is about power and democracy much more than money and economics.

America’s economic system has failed by not raising living standards for most.

The (very) recent rise of quantitative analysis in history of economics working papers calls for a closer examination of the prospects and limitations of this approach, and of the impediment to its large-scale development.

The Ukrainian government has committed to implement far-reaching reforms in exchange for the support it is getting from the international community, led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Understandably, given Ukraine’s disappointing transition history, there is widespread scepticism on whether the country will live up to its commitments. Three failed IMF programmes later, the fundamental question is: Is it different this time?

The monetary-fiscal policy connection is under scrutiny by the German Constitutional Court in the context of the ECB’s OMT bond-buying programme. This column argues that most analyses are deeply flawed by the misapplication of private-company default principles to the central bank. ECB bond-buying transforms public bonds into monetary base, and sovereign-default risk into inflation risk. The real question is: What is the non-inflationary limit to money-base expansion? This depends upon the economic situation and is much higher in the current liquidity-trap setting.

Janine Wedel charts the fast–evolving system of power and influence. Who is accountable? What are the remedies available to the average citizen?

The extremely wise Robert Skidelsky has an excellent rant against Anglo-Saxon economics departments