The Week That Was in Europe

We review the fiscal position of France, Germany, Italy and Spain, discuss the need for consolidation and how it could be implemented with minimal harm to output.

Provided wage growth moderates and inflation develops as expected, the ECB will start cutting interest rates in June. We discuss the uncertainties around this outlook and recent headwinds on the inflation front.

We discuss with Prof. Harald Fadinger (University of Mannheim) how the EU taxes the carbon content of imported goods via its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). We critically review the effectivenes of CBAM to prevent "carbon leakage", i.e., the international reallocation of production to locations with low carbon prices, and its effect on the international competitiveness o

We discuss with Veronika Grimm (German Council of Economic Experts) about lifting Germany's long-run growth potential. We focus on measures that increase labor supply, human capital formation and the role of long-run electricity prices.

The @ecb is getting close to cutting interest rates: it signaled following it March 7 Governing Council Meeting its readiness to start cutting rates in June, if everything goes according to plan.

We talk about recent trends and future challenges for productivity growth in the French economy. Our guest, Alain Durré, is Head of the Macroeconomics and Europe Division at the Bureau of the French Prime Minister and Rapporteur Général of the French National Productivity Board.

Euro Area inflation fell like a rock: from the peak of 10.6%, reached in October 2022, it dropped to levels below 3% a year later. We analyze how much of this decline can be attributed to policy tightening by the ECB. We find that the direct effect of ECB policy is likely small. ECB policy may have had important indirect effecta via anchoring inflation expectations, but quantifying

We present the main academic insights about how government debt should evolve over time, if the government seeks to maximize social welfare. We discuss (i) how to deal with positive/negative expenditure surprises, (ii) how refinancing risk, due to interest rate risk, impacts optimal government debt dynamics, and (iii) the optimal long-run level of government debt. The academic pape

We talk with Bernard Dadah (Head of Commodity Research, Natixis) about critical minerals. What are these? How big of market do they have? Who mines and refines them? What can the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) achieve?

We discuss with the ECB's Director General for Economics Oscar Arce about the Euro Area's macroeconomic outlook, the ECB's past forecast errors, the way forecasts are produced at the ECB and the difficulties associated with producing macroeconomic projections. A true tour de force through the topic!