Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher driven by the core values of freedom, sustainability, and equality. These principles guide our exploration of society’s most pressing challenges. This archive page curates Social Europe articles focused on economic issues, offering a rich resource for innovative thinking and informed debate.
With global trade negotiations deadlocked for years, regional agreements – long a dormant route to trade liberalization – are back with a vengeance. The United States is at the center of two mega-deals that could shape the future path of world trade. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is further along, and involves 11 countries, besides the US, that […]
At first sight the negotiations between Greece and the Troika seem to be simply a battle about resources: how much of the pie that is Greek national income their creditors should receive. There have been many similar types of battle over the years – what makes this one unusual is that the creditors have a […]
In an era characterized by political polarization and policy paralysis, we should celebrate broad agreement on economic strategy wherever we find it. One such area of agreement is the idea that the key to inclusive growth is, as then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair put in his 2001 reelection campaign, “education, education, education.” If we broaden […]
The Financial Times has a useful background article on the debate about pension reforms in Greece, one of the main sticking points in the current showdown, which makes a number of important points. Some comments and amplifications are in order. The article refers to groups of workers that, at least until the crisis, enjoyed very […]
Where is Europe’s Mark Zuckerberg? While half of young people strive for and want a career as an entrepreneur, research shows that only 6.5% of young people in Europe opt for self‑employment. Is entrepreneurship a viable career path for everybody and is Europe a business-friendly environment for youth? The latest enables us to answer these […]
The economic historian Niall Ferguson reminds me of the late Oxford historian A.J.P. Taylor. Though Taylor maintained that he tried to tell the truth in his historical writing, he was quite ready to spin the facts for a good cause. Ferguson, too, is a wonderful historian – but totally unscrupulous when he shifts into political gear. Ferguson’s […]
In his First Inaugural Address, during the depths of the Great Depression, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously told Americans that, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Invoking the Book of Exodus, he went on to say that, “We are stricken by no plague of locusts.” Nothing tangible was causing the depression; […]
A few people have asked me to respond to this FT piece from Niall Ferguson. I was reluctant to, because it is really just a bit of triumphalist Tory tosh. That such things get published in the Financial Times is unfortunate but I’m afraid not surprising in this case. However I want to write later about something else […]
There is an interesting debate going on in Europe about the likely consequences of the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). Much of the real debate is (or should be) about the proposed Investor-State dispute resolution (ISDS) and the desirability of regulatory harmonization when nations have different preferences about how these regulations should be designed. […]
In 2011, the Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman characterized conservative discourse on budget deficits in terms of “bond vigilantes” and the “confidence fairy.” Unless governments cut their deficits, the bond vigilantes will put the screws to them by forcing up interest rates. But if they do cut, the confidence fairy will reward them by stimulating private spending more than […]
Any ‘economic growth’ strategy which ignores the all-important strand of promoting, encouraging and developing innovation is doomed to fail. It has been more than a decade since Donald Rumsfeld, the hapless US secretary of defense, branded Europe’s most advanced economies as “old Europe”. The reaction at the time was merciless. German and French ministers decried […]
The developed world seems to be moving toward a long-term zero-interest-rate environment. Though the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the eurozone have kept central-bank policy rates at zero for several years already, the perception that this was a temporary aberration meant that medium- to long-term rates remained substantial. But this may be changing, especially […]
At first glance, the eurozone economy seems like it might finally be on the mend. Stock markets are rallying. Consumer confidence has picked up. Lower oil prices, a cheaper euro, and quantitative easing by the European Central Bank are all expected to boost growth. ECB President Mario Draghi claims that “a sustained recovery is taking hold,” while […]
Like many readers, I still vividly recall when Nokia was the dominant player in mobile phones, with over 40% of the market, and Apple was just a computer company. I remember when Amazon was known only for books, and when dirty taxis or high-priced limousines where the only alternative to public transport or my own […]
A while ago I participated in a TV debate on Greece (German speakers can follow this link). One of the points of contention was whether investment in Greece has been structurally weak, hampered by overregulation or corruption – in short: it’s the supply side, stupid – or whether the country’s economic problems are primarily derived […]
Whenever I write a post critical of German views on Eurozone policy, I get comments which can be paraphrased in the following way. Greece (and maybe other Eurozone countries) are incapable of governing themselves properly, and when they get into difficulties Germany has to bail them out, so it is only reasonable that as a […]
Getting Stupid Capital Flows Off The Hook The analytical note on the next steps for better economic governance that was published mid- February during the informal European Council reopens the discussion on how to obtain a strict coordination of national economic policy making in the Euro Area. Or, to put it more bluntly, how to […]
The battle with the creditors of the bankrupt private banks in Iceland is still not over, although the country won the Icesave dispute, graduated from IMF´s austerity programme in 2011 and jailed some of its ‘banksters’. The first phase of the battle with creditors ended in January 2013 when the EFTA court ruled that Icelandic […]
As the Euro crisis hit, European policy makers reacted with headless austerity policies and a tightening of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). The failure of these policies is obvious: after seven years of deep economic crisis the Euro area is on the verge of deflationary stagnation. Public investment – which should have stabilized the […]
Angela Merkel proclaimed at an early stage that the Greeks could not retire earlier and have longer holidays than the Germans. Der Spiegel’s interpretation was: “We aren’t going to give our hard-earned German money to lazy southern Europeans.” Sweden’s Minister of Finance, Anders Borg, echoed this whilst on the way to an EU meeting: “Obviously, Swedes […]
Monetary policy has become increasingly unconventional in the last six years, with central banks implementing zero-interest-rate policies, quantitative easing, credit easing, forward guidance, and unlimited exchange-rate intervention. But now we have come to the most unconventional policy tool of them all: negative nominal interest rates. Such rates currently prevail in the eurozone, Switzerland, Denmark, and […]