Archive

Not only is German animus towards Mario Draghi misplaced, Peter Bofinger argues. His stewardship of the European Central Bank has been a boon for the largest eurozone economy.

Libra means ‘balance’ in Latin. But Peter Bofinger argues that Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency would be highly risky for holders and a giant enrichment programme for the company.

A paper from the German economy minister on a national industrial policy has gone down like a lead balloon. Peter Bofinger argues it needs to be reflated—and coloured green—at a European level.

Can government deficits be financed directly by central banks, as modern monetary theory suggests? The question should not be if but how much.

For a decade there has been cross-party support in Germany for the balanced-budget rule. But in the first of a series of Social Europe columns on German economic debates, Peter Bofinger explains why the social democrats should abandon the ‘black zero’.

Documentation of the IMK Workshop from 22.03.2016

The Eurozone (EZ) ‘consensus narrative’ argues the Crisis should not be thought of as a government debt crisis in its origin. Instead it regards large intra-EZ capital flows that emerged in the decade before the Crisis as the real culprit. This column argues that while the narrative is correct, it is also incomplete. With its focus on the deficit countries, it neglects the role of Germany, by far the largest member state, and its contribution to the imbalances in the years preceding the Crisis. A narrative that does not account for the effects of the German wage moderation is incomplete.

The Euro area is suffering from insufficient macroeconomic stabilisation. [...]