Faced with declining fertility rates and persistent gender gaps, governments have expanded policies to support working families. But sudden increases in allowable parental leave can impose wage costs on firms and negatively affect firm survival. This column examines how Austrian firms responded to a parental leave reform for which they could plan. Whether mothers could […]
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 […]
Exchange-traded funds and open-ended mutual funds have grown rapidly, and they are increasingly expanding into illiquid asset classes such as corporate bonds. This column argues that this trend could lead to increased volatility in corporate bond markets, especially during periods of market stress. Furthermore, risks vary significantly depending on the type of investor (retail or […]
Understanding how households interpret macroeconomic policy is vital to the effectiveness of central banks. This column demonstrates that the reactions of individual households frequently contradict standard theoretical playbooks. Using euro area survey data, the authors find that households interpret policy through a lens shaped by recent crises – such as the energy shock following Russia’s […]
Product market regulation reforms directly affect firm entry, innovation and reallocation, and thus productivity and economic growth. This column leverages the 2025 update of the OECD Energy, Transport and Communications Regulation indicator to show that anticompetitive regulations in upstream sectors curb long-run economic performance in downstream sectors. Across the OECD, deregulation in network industries between […]
Every year, the World Bank Group classifies the world’s economies into four income groups: low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high. These classifications, updated each year on July 1, are based on the previous year’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, expressed in U.S. dollars using the Atlas method. The Importance of Income Classification A country’s income classification not only […]
Forecasts underpinning budgetary plans have a well-documented impact on fiscal performance especially when policymakers view the world through rosy lenses. Combined with inertia in the implementation phase, optimism contributes to a possible deficit bias and the accumulation of government debt. This column introduces the new Forecast Tracker of the Secretariat of the European Fiscal Board, […]
The European Commission is set to clarify that the European Union’s crypto rules allow stablecoins issued by a company with an EU licence to be treated as interchangeable with those issued by a company’s non-EU entities, a source close to the matter said on Wednesday. The Commission will provide the clarification in the near future, […]
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, […]
Amid geopolitical shocks, the EU is revisiting its industrial strategy. However, traditional metrics often paint a misleading picture of Europe’s underlying strength. This column uses a new approach to measure the EU’s relative state of technology in different sectors. It shows that although EU manufacturing broadly outperforms the rest of the world in productivity terms, […]
