debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
An additional almost 200,000 Europeans were unemployed in March compared with February according to the latest Eurostat data. Of these the vast majority were in the euro area (169,000). The pace at which the labour market situation is deteriorating is, if anything, accelerating. Since March 2011, when ill-advised austerity and monetary policy tightening began to [...]
Sometimes a counter-intuitive statement is based on a clever insight. For example, the statement ‘fiscal austerity can lead to higher government deficit ratios’ sounds implausible, but (most) economists agree that, at least under certain conditions, it may well apply. The reason is that the austerity reduces output, and thus the denominator of the deficit ratio, [...]
Originally posted 17 November 2007, this Vox column is more relevant than ever arguing that adopting the euro is effectively irreversible. Leaving would require lengthy preparations, which, given the anticipated devaluation, would trigger the mother of all financial crises. National households and firms would shift deposits to other Eurozone banks producing a system-wide bank run. [...]
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