Citing evidence that the levels of net trust in the national parliaments have dropped to -50% in three of the four troubled periphery eurozone countries (Ireland, Spain and Greece), this Commentary warns that the European and national policy-makers’ strategy of the three no’s – no bail-out, no default and no exit –appears to threaten political stability in these countries.
Felix Roth is a Research Fellow at CEPS.

In his latest Commentary, CEPS Director Daniel Gros draws an analogy between the situation in the eurozone for investors today and a crowded cinema with only one emergency exit: everyone knows that in case of fire, only the first to leave will be safe. To avoid a stampede, he calls upon the IMF and the ECB to show investors that they have enough funding to finance the simultaneous exit of all short-term investors by immediately widening the exit door and by prominently displaying huge fire extinguishers.

Muddling through isn’t working. This commentary argues that troubled eurozone nations should simultaneously open restructuring talks while continuing to service their debts normally. Germany, France and other core eurozone nations would have to stand ready to recapitalise the banks most exposed to the restructured debt. The ECB would then stabilise the banking system and the EFSF would stabilise sovereign debt. This big bang could be prepared in a weekend; the market already seems to be pricing it in.

Daniel Gros is the Director of CEPS.

In this Commentary, Daniel Gros takes pains to discourage any great expectations from the 5th G20 summit taking place in Seoul, November 11-12, given the conflicting national policy imperatives that will be in strong evidence. He acknowledges, however, that a lot could be achieved through a frank exchange on key economic issues so that the world's leaders understand the concerns of their counterparts and agree to tone down the rhetoric.

Drawing an analogy with the ill-fated Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the pre-eurozone era, Paul De Grauwe argues in a new CEPS Commentary that the creation of a sovereign debt default mechanism is a very bad decision that will make the eurozone more fragile by making financial crises an endemic feature.

Paul De Grauwe is Professor of Economics at the Faculty of Business Economics at the University of Leuven and Senior Associate Research Fellow at CEPS.
 

Regional and bilateral liquidity arrangements have gained increasing prominence over the past decades, not least during the recent global financial crisis. This has important consequences for the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a crisis lender and raises questions regarding the relationship between these arrangements and Fund lending.

The EU 2020 Agenda has taken an important step forward by setting the target for tertiary graduation rates at an ambitious 40%. This paper finds that many European countries, however, including the largest economy – Germany – will not be able to meet this target. Moreover, the crucial topic of educational quality is not even touched upon. Comparing the EU with China in total numbers, the authors find that China’s education system already produces the same number of graduates with tertiary education as the whole EU15.

This commentary points to the IMF as a prime example of the over-representation of Europeans in international fora, which has the effect of actually diminishing Europe’s influence. The representatives are often instructed to defend (frequently divergent) national interests and the net effect is that common European interests are not represented at all. The author argues that the only sensible long-term solution is to pool the IMF quotas of all eurozone countries.

This paper analyses whether the financial crisis has affected citizens’ confidence in the free market economy and whether it has triggered citizens’ demand for a free market economy with stronger state regulations. Using panel data, the paper confirms that citizens’ confidence levels in the free market economy have decreased in most of the largest economies and demand for a free market economy with stronger state regulation has increased on both sides of the Atlantic.

Close coordination of national fiscal policy and surveillance of competitiveness seem highly desirable within a monetary union. But are they also feasible? This note argues that surveillance of competitiveness risks concentrating on symptoms (rising wages in the non-tradable sector), rather than the underlying causes (credit-financed booms). Moreover, the economic rationale for fiscal policy coordination (beyond the strict enforcement of the Stability and Growth Pact – SGP) seems to be weak during normal times.

Using new international comparable data on intangible capital investment by business within a panel analysis from 1995-2005 in an EU-15 country sample, this paper finds a positive and significant relationship between intangible capital investment by business and labour productivity growth. This relationship is cross-sectional in nature and proves to be robust to a range of alterations.

Trust in the European Central Bank, as measured by the standard Eurobarometer (and other) surveys has fallen to an unprecedented low – especially in the larger euro area countries. The authors find that up to the start of the financial crisis in 2008, trust in the ECB was little affected by business cycle variables such as growth and inflation. This changed radically with the recession, with trust in the ECB being correlated quite closely with growth. However, even the recovery of growth in 2009 was not sufficient to restore trust in the ECB to previous levels.

In his latest commentary, CEPS Director Daniel Gros argues that Europe cannot escape the crisis in its financial markets until it fixes its banks. Indeed, the markets will remain on edge until the vast undercapitalisation of the banking system is dealt with decisively.

Launched in January 2009, ANCIEN is a research project that runs for a 44-month period and involves 20 partners from EU member states. The project principally concerns the future of long-term care (LTC) for the elderly in Europe and addresses two questions in particular: 1) How will need, demand, supply and use of LTC develop? 2) How do different systems of LTC perform?