Christine Lagarde seeks a greater international role for the euro, but Europe’s economic realities present a complex challenge.
Germany Ditches Debt Brake—A Fiscal Revolution Begins
Germany scraps its debt brake, unleashing a 500-billion-euro investment plan that could transform infrastructure, defence, and economic growth.
Capital-markets union: a panacea for Europe?
Financial integration is not the problem, writes Peter Bofinger. It is the still national segmentation of government bonds.
Time for supply-side policy: Thatcher versus Schumpeter
Peter Bofinger explains what lies behind the conflict within Germany’s Ampelkoalition on economic policy.
ECB: now is the time for normalisation
Europe needs massive investment, Peter Bofinger writes. Yet the ECB’s restrictive monetary stance means it is set to fall this year.
Germany: the ‘sick man’ of Europe—but ‘dumb’ as well?
The austerity package stemming from an adverse Constitutional Court ruling, Peter Bofinger writes, defies logic.
Germany’s true economic disease
Germany is indeed ‘sick’, Peter Bofinger writes—but not for the reason most commentators think.
ECB president Lagarde: has she become unstoppable?
Asserting the need for further interest rate rises, Peter Bofinger writes, is not the same as evidencing them.
The failure of Credit Suisse—not just a one-off
The bank was mismanaged but its collapse, Peter Bofinger writes, reveals a system of regulation with as many holes as a Swiss cheese.
The role of public debt in the ‘new normal’
A Schumpeterian perspective provides new insights for fiscal policy in Europe, Peter Bofinger writes.
The digital euro: a flawed concept doomed to flop
Peter Bofinger argues that on the ‘digital euro’ the European Central Bank has dug itself into a hole it would do best to vacate.
A noble award for a ‘popular misconception’
Peter Bofinger questions last week’s award of a prestigious economics prize to an orthodox school which could not anticipate the 2008 crash.
Inflation: saving households from insolvency
Peter Bofinger argues that state guarantees of loans to households could cushion the price shock at negligible cost.
Return to positive interest rates requires a safety net
Peter Bofinger explains how inflation in the eurozone can be tempered without jeopardising recovery.
Taking the heat out of energy prices
Instead of higher interest rates, Peter Bofinger urges lower VAT on energy and temporary suspension of the CO2 trading system.
The ECB needs a better narrative
Giving the public impression that inflation is ‘too low’, Peter Bofinger writes, is not a good look for the bank.
Germany’s traffic-light coalition: green light or stuck on amber?
Peter Bofinger recognises the compromises necessary for a three-party government but regrets the lack of vision to face a decade of huge challenges.
ECB strategy review: the mountain has given birth to a mouse
Peter Bofinger argues that the ECB strategy review represents a missed opportunity.
It’s time to rewrite the macroeconomic rulebook for the euro area
Peter Bofinger contends that the economic impact of the pandemic has rendered obsolete the old eurozone fiscal rules.
How to stimulate the economy after the lockdown
A ‘helicopter money’ stimulus of direct payments to individuals, as in the US, would be neither well targeted nor transformatory in Europe.
Bitcoin lacks a unique selling proposition
Peter Bofinger identifies the cryptocurrency’s Achilles heel.