Rui Esteves, Seán Kenny, Jason Lennard 20 July 2021
There is little consensus on the macroeconomic impacts of sovereign debt crises, despite the regularity of such events. This column quantifies the aggregate costs of defaults using a narrative approach on a large panel of 50 sovereigns between 1870 and 2010. It estimates significant and persistent negative effects of debt crises starting at 1.6% of GDP and peaking at 3.3%, before reverting to trend five years later. In addition, underlying causes matter. Defaults driven by aggregate demand shocks result in short-term contractions, whereas aggregate supply shocks lead to larger, more persistent losses.
Nicola Gennaioli, Alberto Martin, Stefano Rossi
Fiscal rules were enshrined in the founding documents of the European Monetary Union. This column presents the latest CfM-CEPR survey, in which the panel of experts on the European economy were nearly unanimous in agreeing that the existing EU fiscal rules require revision. Most panel members would opt for some combination of fiscal councils; more flexible, countercyclical, or
The EU’s fiscal rules have been suspended until at least the end of 2021. When they are reinstated, they will need to be modified, if only because of the high levels of debt. Proposals have been made suggesting various changes and simplifications. The gist of most proposals is to retain the 60% debt ratio as a long-term debt anchor and a dividing line between the fiscal rules that apply for countries with debts above and below, while replacing the plethora of existing rules and procedures with an expenditure rule that allows fluctuations in the deficit driven by cyclical changes in revenue.
The financial crisis of 2007-2012 was the first wake up call to the inadequacy of the euro area architecture when facing a large systemic crisis. This column explains why the Covid crisis will leave a deeper impact on the European policy system, and re-introduces the Vox debate on Europe’s economic architecture in the context of the transformations that we have witnessed over
Ilan Noy
There is no discernible trade-off between health and GDP outcomes in 2020 (Figure 1). That s one unenviable choice governments were saved from having to make. The economic impact of COVID-19 was highly differentiated, it was not just driven inversely to health outcomes. Early GDP estimates suggest that except for a few fragile states, factors driving GDP in 2020 were the degree to which countries were hit by the global cessation of trade, travel, foreign direct investment, and the degree to which they had the policy space to offset a widespread economic shutdown (Arezki et al. 2021).
Figure 1 Economic decline in the second quarter of 2020 vs rate of confirmed deaths