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11. Germany’s Debt Brake and Europe’s Fiscal Stance after COVID-19

Author:
Shahin Vallée, Jérémie Cohen-Setton, and Dominik Buhl
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
Germany’s plan to return to its debt brake creates a serious risk of premature fiscal tightening. Given that the fiscal divide between Europe and the US will widen sharply in 2021, a hasty return to European and German fiscal rules would stifle recovery and undermine efforts to rebuild transatlantic ties in trade and macroeconomic cooperation. This paper proposes several practical options to attenuate the fiscal drag associated with a return to the debt brake and calls for a broad debate on its reform.
Topic:
Debt, European Union, Finance, Transatlantic Relations, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, and United States of America

12. Will corporate debt choke the post-COVID-19 recovery?

Author:
Frederico Mollet
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:
Europe’s economic recovery is threatened by the corporate debt overhang created in the wake of the pandemic. Even as vaccines roll out, Europe faces the prospect of a prolonged retrenchment as indebted firms pull back investments and repair their balance sheets. Insolvency procedures have gradually improved over the past decade in Europe, but decisive and swift public action is needed to take advantage of these reforms. Given the scale of the crisis, Frederico Mollet argues in favour of a comprehensive European restructuring strategy. EU member states and the Commission must step in to provide the resources, guidance, and coordination necessary to push through this monumental restructuring. This strategy would furthermore benefit from common European guidelines and criteria for creditors and debtors. It will not only increase the likelihood of success but also protect the level playing field. Lack of a clear strategy and coordinated approach will result in a drawn-out restructuring process that pushes too many viable firms into liquidation and permanently hampers the economic recovery. Centring on private restructurings would also minimise the use of public funds at a time when governments have to deal with multiple competing fiscal pressures.
Topic:
Debt, Political Economy, and Economic Recovery
Political Geography:
Europe

13. A New Policy Toolkit Is Needed as Countries Exit COVID-19 Lockdowns

Author:
Olivier Blanchard, Thomas Philippon, and Jean Pisani-Ferry
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The measures that most governments took in response to the sudden collapse in economic activity during the COVID-19 lockdowns nearly exclusively focused on protecting vulnerable workers and firms. These measures included unemployment benefits, grants, transfers, loans at low rates, and tax deferrals. As lockdowns are lifted, governments must shift policies toward supporting the recovery and design measures that will limit the pain of adjustment while preserving productive jobs and firms. This Policy Brief explores how such measures can be designed, with particular emphasis on Europe and the United States. The authors propose a combination of unemployment benefits to help workers, wage subsidies and partially guaranteed loans to help firms, and debt restructuring procedures for small and medium-sized companies handicapped by excessive legacy debt from the crisis.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Government, Labor Issues, Unemployment, and Coronavirus
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, and United States of America

14. Primary Dealer Systems in the European Union

Author:
Jenny Preunkert
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo)
Abstract:
States require money to function and therefore every government has to continuously raise new funds. On the financial markets, governments cannot be sure that auctions of their debt will be sufficiently attractive to financial investors, which is why governments usually enter into cooperative agreements with selected banks. The best known and most widespread form of cooperation is the primary dealer system. Primary dealers are banks that agree to participate regularly in government debt auctions and to act as formalized market makers on government debt markets. The article analyzes European primary dealer systems and asks why banks are willing to participate in these systems. I will show that both domestic and foreign banks use their status as primary dealers to build long-term relationships with one or more European governments and to gain an advantage on the global stage. In Bourdieu’s terms, primary dealer banks use their financial capital to accumulate social and symbolic capital.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Financial Markets, Banks, and Macroeconomics
Political Geography:
Europe and European Union

15. COVID-Induced Sovereign Risk in the Euro Area: When Did the ECB Stop the Contagion?

Author:
Aymeric Ortmans and Fabien Tripier
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:
This paper studies how the announcement of the ECB’s monetary policies stopped the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to the European sovereign debt market. We show that up to March 9, the occurrence of new cases in euro area countries had a sizeable and persistent effect on 10-year sovereign bond spreads relative to Germany: 10 new confirmed cases per million people were accompanied by an immediate spread increase of 0.03 percentage points (ppt) that lasted 5 days, for a total increase of 0.35 ppt. For periods afterwards,the effect falls to near zero and is not significant. We interpret this change as an indicator of the success of the ECB’s March 12 press conference, despite the “we are not here to close spreads” controversy. Our results hold for the stock market, providing further evidence of the effectiveness of the ECB’s March 12 announcements in stopping the financial turmoil. A counterfactual analysis shows that without the shift in the sensitivity of sovereign bond markets to COVID-19, spreads would have surged to 4.2% in France, 12.5% in Spain, and 19.5% in Italy by March 18, when the ECB’s Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme was finally announced.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, International Political Economy, Markets, Central Bank, COVID-19, and Banking
Political Geography:
Europe

16. Covid 19: a new challenge for the EMU

Author:
Anne-Laure Delatte and Alexis Guillaume
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:
Although the pandemic was an exogenous shock, it triggered portfolio rebalancing in the Euro Area (EA) implying a divergence of sovereign risk premia in the first phase of the crisis eventually followed by a narrowing of the spreads. We estimate the determinants of sovereign bond spreads in the EA during the pandemic from January 2 2020 to May 25 2020. We find that: 1) the countries’ resilience to the COVID shock depended on healthcare capacity, the strength of the banking sector and the fiscal outlook; 2) during the crisis, ECB speeches were a game changer and made a much greater contribution than securities purchase programs; 3) coordination by the European Council also helped to reduce the spreads but the effect was partly offset by loan-based financial assistance programs.
Topic:
Debt, Monetary Policy, European Union, Finance, COVID-19, Bonds, and European Monetary Union
Political Geography:
Europe

17. Money, Stability, and Free Societies

Author:
Steve H. Hanke
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Monetary instability poses a threat to free societies. Indeed, currency instability, banking crises, soaring inflation, sovereign debt defaults, and economic booms and busts all have a common source: monetary instability. Furthermore, all these ills induced by monetary instability bring with them calls for policy changes, many of which threaten free societies. One who understood this simple fact was Karl Schiller, who was the German Finance Minister from 1966 until 1972. Schiller’s mantra was clear and uncompromising: “Stability is not everything, but without stability, everything is nothing” (Marsh 1992: 30). Well, Schiller’s mantra is my mantra. I offer three regime changes that would enhance the stability in what Jacques de Larosière (2014) has asserted is an international monetary “anti-system.” First, the U.S. dollar and the euro should be formally, loosely linked together. Second, most central banks in developing countries should be mothballed and replaced by currency boards. Third, private currency boards should be permitted to enter the international monetary sphere.
Topic:
Debt, Foreign Exchange, Monetary Policy, Developing World, Inflation, and Currency
Political Geography:
Europe, United States of America, and European Union

18. France and African Debt: Testing Multilateralism

Author:
Łukasz Maślanka
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Following an increase of COVID-19 cases in Africa, France wants to present itself as the main advocate of a humanitarian aid plan and the broadly discussed proposal of mass debt relief for the continent. In its political dimension, the move highlights the international role of France and the EU. It can also contribute to decreasing the dependence of African states on China. If it succeeds, President Emmanuel Macron can go forward with his initiative to reform the global governance system, especially the UN, and to emphasize the importance of the EU’s Southern Neighbourhood Policy.
Topic:
Debt, Humanitarian Aid, Multilateralism, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and France

19. Enhancing Credibility and Commitment to Fiscal Rules

Author:
Grzegorz Poniatowski
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Social and Economic Research - CASE
Abstract:
The objective of this paper is to derive the characteristics of an effective fiscal governance framework, focusing on the incentives that ensure a commitment to the fiscal rules. We study this problem with the use of econometric tools, complementing this analysis with formal modelling through the lens of a dynamic principal-agent framework. Our study shows that both economic and institutional factors play an important role in incentivising countries’ fiscal efforts. Fiscal balances are affected not only by the economic cycle, but, among others, by the level of public debt and the world economic situation. We find that the existence of numerical fiscal rules, their strong legal entrenchment, surveillance mechanisms, and credible sanctions binding the hands of governments have a significant impact on curbing deficits. The relationship between the Commission and European Union (EU) Member States (MS), where the EU authorities act as a collective principal that designs contracts for MS, has elements in common with the assumptions of the principal-agent framework. These are: asymmetry of information, moral hazard, different objectives, and the ability to reward or punish the principal. We use a dynamic principal-agent model and show that to ensure good fiscal performance, indirect benefits should be envisaged for higher levels of fiscal effort. In order to account for the structural differences of exerting effort by different MS, it is efficient to adjust fiscal effort to the level of indebtedness. To ensure a commitment to the rules, MS with difficulties conducting prudent fiscal policies should be required to exert less effort than the MS with more modest levels of debt. The FIRSTRUN project is a European Union funded multinational research project that investigates the need for fiscal policy coordination in the EU.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Regional Cooperation, European Union, and Fiscal Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and European Union

20. Is a Fiscal Policy Council needed in Poland?

Author:
Balazs Romhanyi and Lukasz Janikowski
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Social and Economic Research - CASE
Abstract:
Unsustainability and procyclicality of fiscal policy are problems that many developed countries face. The public debt crisis revealed that fiscal rules are a useful but insufficient instrument for mitigating them. A large and growing group of economists are calling for the creation of ‘fiscal policy councils’ – independent collegial bodies made up of experts whose role is to act as independent reviewers of government policy and advise the government and parliament on fiscal policy. Such councils currently exist in at least 40 countries. Poland is the only EU country that does not have a fiscal policy council. The aim of this paper is to address the issue of whether a fiscal policy council is needed in Poland and what kind of additional contribution such a council might make to the public debate on fiscal policy.
Topic:
Debt, Government, Governance, Economy, and Fiscal Policy
Political Geography:
Europe, Poland, and European Union