Crisis

Greece is in dire need of structural reforms, both in terms of public finances and real economy. Privatizations, especially if accompanied by appropriate liberalization policies, can improve the efficiency and…

A deteriorated banking sector in a worn-out economy At the beginning of 2016, in the context of the new EU legislation on “bail in”, Italy found itself unprepared to face…

A successful integration of asylum migrants arriving in Europe will largely depend on their success on the European labour arket. In a new Policy Paper we investigate the labour market barriers faced by asylum migrants in Germany, France and the UK. We recommend a full elimination of barriers explicitly created against labour market entry of asylum migrants, and removal of labour market regulations which hit asylum migrants especially hard.

The European Union has experienced an increase in asylum applications for several
years, with 2014 seeing 570,800 applications, an increase of 47% compared to 2013.
The year-to-year increase in applications will be even more pronounced in 2015.
Germany, Austria, Hungary, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland alone expect 1.3
million applications in 2015 — a new high since the Balkan crisis of the 1990s.

A new study from a German economics institute claims that the German state has already made €100bn from the Greek crisis as lenders flee from Greece into the safe haven…

Greece failed to pay a 1.5 billion installment by the end of June. The rhetoric has long portrayed the lenders as fat cats living off Greece’s misery. Varoufakis had his sight on 1.9 billion which he called “ECB’s profiteering on poor Greeks” and should be “returned” to the Greeks to cover the IMF payment. In reality, the sum not only would not solve anything, its interpretation is plainly wrong. But it’s great propaganda for the referendum.

Bank for International Settlements has labelled the impact of recent European quantitative easing as “unprecedented”. Worrying effects are not only the negative interest rates, but also very high price volatilities of asset. This development may soon hit not only economic, but also legal and even political boundaries.

The Austrian federal state of Carinthia continues to suffer from its long engagement with the Alpe Adria bank, which actually predates the recent crisis. Instead of making a quick cut liquidation after a bail-in, it is hoping to recover some assets in a dragged out wind-down process. It is to be seen whether this prolonged exposition to further claims will prove successful.

Negative interest rates here, there, everywhere. What used to be taught as “impossible” in textbook is now a reality throughout the EU. And for the first time it even affects corporate bonds, not just “safe” sovereign ones. Why would anyone lend more than they receive, when they can just hang on to cash? We explain.

Is the standoff between the ECB and Greece in any sense subtle, or simply a car crash waiting to happen? We explain why being the first to defect may in fact
benefit Greece. With low sympathy for formal (fiscal) debt forgiveness, we expect pressure to increase further on the ECB.

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Deutsche Bank’s CEO hails the new banking regulations. His counterpart at JP Morgan denigrates them. This, and further misconduct news just confirm that banking is still in worse shape than nearly all commentators and regulators appear to recognise.

WP 2015-03. Executive Summary During the past five years, emerging markets have experienced a significant rise in the credit to the private sector. In the countries that have recently joined…