Opinion
Russia's war in Ukraine has underscored the need for Europe finally to invest more in its own defence and security. Such an outrageous act of aggression calls for harsh sanctions, which will require new policy mechanisms to help EU countries maintain solidarity.
Blog Post
It’s that time of the year, again. Silvia Merler reviews major contributions to the literature on the controversial topic of the deadweight loss of Christmas.
Blog Post
For weeks, protesters wearing yellow motorist vests have taken to the streets of Paris to protest against the rising price of fuel. They have since taken on a wider role, and are seen as symbols of the growing popular discontent with President Macron. Silvia Merler reviews scholars’ opinions about this movement.
Blog Post
A few weeks ago, Silvia Merler discussed the rise of “ethical investing”. A related question emerging from the discussion is whether central banks should also “go green”. Silvia reviews the latest developments and opinions on this topic.
Blog Post
Machine learning (ML), together with artificial intelligence (AI), is a hot topic. Economists have been looking into machine learning applications not only to obtain better prediction, but also for policy targeting. We review some of the contributions.
Blog Post
Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini is "convinced" that Italians can help out their government, in the face of a widening yield spread between German and Italian government bonds. The authors assess the feasibility of recourse to household wealth in Italy, and estimate the relative importance of foreign debt-holders in the upcoming bond redemptions.
Blog Post
On November 14th the UK government cabinet approved the draft text of the withdrawal agreement, the deal reached between EU and UK negotiators. The decision was followed the next day by the resignations of several members of Parliament. We review the first reactions in the blogosphere.
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Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won the Brazilian presidential elections after a highly polarising campaign. We review economists’ and scholars’ views of what this means for Brazil going forward.
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We are used to think about the value of investment as measured by financial return. But investing with an eye to environmental or social issues and, more generally, ethical considerations, has become more prominent. We review contributions to this debate.
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While final ratification of the USMCA (also known as Nafta 2.0) is pending, we review economists’ assessment of the agreement.
Blog Post
The 2018 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded jointly to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer for integrating respectively climate change and technological innovation into long-run macroeconomic analysis. We review how economists reacted to the announcement.