public finance – BSE Voice

“Mini-Bot: Ingenuity or Ignorance” is my first policy brief for the Luiss School of European Political Economy.

“The concept of using mini-BOTs to pay off trade payables may seem like a good idea, but if we analyze it in detail we can intuitively conclude that such a tool is futile and limited…It is clear that the mini-BOTs are a completely sterile, if not harmful, device for public finances, as their implementation (or just the information that the government is officially studying their implementation) would put again Italy on the road to leaving the euro.

Read the full policy brief

Alessandro Franconi ’17 is a PhD trainee at the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). He is an alum of the Barcelona GSE Master’s in Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Markets.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series showcasing Barcelona GSE master projects by students in the Class of 2014. The project is a required component of every master program.

Europe out of balance: an analysis of current accounts in Europe

Author:

Michel Carlo Nies

Master Program:

Economics

Paper Abstract:

The European sovereign debt crisis should not only be seen as the simple failure to manage public finances, but also as the consequence of divergent balance of payment positions. This paper attempts to shed light on this line of argument by analysing empirically the determinants of current accounts. The principal conclusion is that divergent developments in labour costs and misallocation of capital are behind the developments that led to the sovereign debt crisis. Given these results, this paper also evaluates different policy measures designed to address the issue of diverging current accounts.

Read the full paper or view slides below:

[slideshare id=39413120&doc=europe-current-accounts-140923033450-phpapp02]