Modern financial systems rely on safe assets. A ‘safe asset’ is defined by three characteristics (Brunnermeier et al. 2016, 2017, Brunnermeier and Huang 2018, Gorton and Ordonez 2022). First, it has a low default risk, or high asset ‘quality’. Second, like a good friend, a safe asset retains its value during bad times (‘robustness’). Third, […]
The draft European Union Data Act, proposed by the European Commission in February 2022, aims to fill a big gap in data regulation. It is intended to tackle a situation in which manufacturers design machines to give themselves exclusive access to the data those machines generate. Manufacturers can then leverage this data monopoly to sell exclusive […]
Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android mobile operating system dominate the smartphone market. The two companies also control the app stores consumers use when downloading apps for use on their smartphones. iPhone users can download apps only from the Apple app store. Android phones, meanwhile, allow ‘sideloading’ of apps from stores other than Google Play. For […]
When it comes to encouraging fiscal discipline, euro-area policymakers want the market to be part of the solution. This will not succeed until they make peace with the idea that, while it is their job to set conditions and incentives, it is not their job to dictate prices and spreads. Within the environment that policy […]
