The EU and the US have taken starkly different approaches to the regulation of new monies issued using distributed ledger technology. The current US administration prefers dollar-backed stablecoins, with the aim to reinforce dollar dominance worldwide. This column argues that dollar-pegged stablecoins pose a risk for the EU, but the current legal framework can ensure […]
Geopolitical risk is a key concern for the euro area, yet most available measures reflect a US perspective. This column introduces a new indicator of geopolitical risk tailored specifically to the euro area, based entirely on newspaper coverage from local sources. The authors show that shocks to this index have significant recessionary and inflationary effects, […]
The causes and consequences of income and wealth inequality are central concerns in economic research and policy discussions. This column presents findings from the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances on the state of US economic inequality. Three key patterns emerge: wealth remains highly concentrated, younger generations are accumulating less wealth than their predecessors, and wealth […]
President Trump’s 2025 tariffs mark the onset of the post-American leadership era. This column introduces The Great Trade Hack, a new CEPR Rapid Response book arguing that Trump’s trade policy, driven by a ‘Grievance Doctrine’, is emotionally coherent but economically incoherent. Despite their failure to deliver real solutions, tariffs persist as ‘policy placebos’ that deflect […]
