The Sound of Economics

In this Director’s Cut of ‘The Sound of Economics’, Guntram Wolff welcomes Bruegel research fellow Grégory Claeys to assess how the new Italian budget proposals measure up against the existing EU fiscal rules. Italy’s new budget proposals, together with projected deficit levels for the coming years, have put the EU as well as bond-market investors on alert. In the context of Italy’s already-high r...

Bruegel senior fellow André Sapir welcomes Tamotsu Nakamura, dean of Kobe University’s Graduate School of Economics, and Maria Åsenius, head of cabinet to European trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström, for a discussion of the EU-Japan economic partnership in the context of heightening global trade tensions. The EU and Japan have signed a landmark trade deal this summer that will create the world’s...

Bruegel deputy director Maria Demertzis welcomes Financial Times commentator Martin Sandbu to explore the journey taken by the field of economics since the financial crisis struck 10 years ago, and discusses what new tools economics has now that it didn’t have then. In this Director’s Cut of ‘The Sound of Economics’, we trace the journey upon which the field of economics has embarked since the fin...

Guntram Wolff welcomes Bruegel affiliate fellow Silvia Merler to evaluate the Italian government’s planned budget for 2019, in this Director’s Cut of ‘The Sound of Economics’ Six months after its election, Italy’s coalition government reached an agreement on public spending. The key tenets of its first budget include a spending increase that will drive the budget deficit to 2.4% of GDP, tax cuts,...

Bruegel senior fellow Scott Marcus welcomes former European Regulators Group chairman Kip Meek to explore the consequences of Brexit for ICT policy-making in Europe. The divorce of the UK from the European Union will have far-reaching consequences for all sectors, but what will be the balance of continuity and disruption in the sphere of ICT regulation? With the terms of separation and the nature...

Following a conference at Bruegel, at a critical moment for the global economic system, Bruegel director Guntram Wolff is joined by Zhang Weiwei, director at The China Institute of Fudan University, together with Bruegel senior fellow Alicia García-Herrero, for a discussion of EU-China trade relations. With the United States pursuing a policy of imposing trade tariffs on its international partners...

Immigration is one of the most contentious policy matters currently facing the EU. In this Director’s Cut of ‘The Sound of Economics’ Bruegel director Guntram Wolff welcomes Ana Palacio, member of the Spanish council of state and former foreign affairs minister, as well as Bruegel visiting fellow Elina Ribakova for a constructive discussion as to which approaches will yield the best results. Joini...

In the first episode of the new Backstage series on ‘The Sound of Economics’, Bruegel senior fellow Nicolas Véron takes time out from the Bruegel Annual Meetings to discuss the immediate future of European banking and capital markets union with Jörg Kukies, state secretary at the German ministry of finance. The euro-area reform agenda hopes to prevent the repetition of problems that arose during t...

Bruegel senior fellow Zsolt Darvas joins Sean Gibson on ‘The Sound of Economics’ to expound on the themes of a Policy Contribution on the macroeconomic implications of healthcare systems , which he has co-written with Nicolas Moës, Yana Myachenkova and David Pichler. This episode is the first in a new Bruegel podcast series, ‘Deep Focus’, looking specifically at Bruegel research and elaborating on...

Bruegel director Guntram Wolff welcomes Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Jean Pisani-Ferry, mercator senior fellow at Bruegel, to discuss the deterioration of Turkey's economy. Although a recent souring of relations with the US has provided the immediate prompt for Turkey's current crisis, the country's underlying economic malaise is more deeply rooted.  Headline...

More than two months after the Italian elections and its turbulent political negotiations, Italy finally has a new government. While this has had a calming effect on the financial markets, Italy's medium and long term economic outlook is yet to be determined. Bruegel affiliate fellow, Silvia Merler, is joined by Marcello Minenna, PhD lecturer at the London Graduate School and Head of Quants at Con...

Bruegel director Guntram Wolff and Ashoka Mody – visiting professor in international economic policy at Princeton University – explore subjects addressed in the latter’s latest book, Euro tragedy: a drama in nine acts. Kicking off this Director’s Cut of the 'The Sound of Economics', the two explore the historical development behind the EU's creation. Ashoka Mody argues that the adoption of the eur...

According to Annamaria Lusadi, academic director at the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center, financial literacy requires both a knowledge of financial concepts and the confidence to make effective financial decisions in order to maximise one's well-being. Financial literacy is not only limited to knowledge of monetary calculations, but is also measured by the extent to which individuals un...

Paul Tucker, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, joins Bruegel director Guntram Wolff to discuss the thesis of his new book, as well as the current tensions within current models of central banking governance. On the agenda is the contention that there is, and even should be, a limit to the level of responsibility that a central bank can reasonably be expected to shoulder. Some decision...

Technological advancements continue to drive change in every industry. In a recent working paper co-written with Francesco Chiacchio and David Pichler, Bruegel research fellow Georgios Petropoulos has explored the impact of the increasing number of robots on employment and wages in Europe. The introduction of robots constitutes only one industrial advance among many, and each automated technology...

The coalition agreement between Italy’s Five Star Movement and the League puts the country’s new government on a potential collision course with the European Union, and has prompted fears that the country could nosedive out of the euro zone. Markets have already born witness to investor nervousness over the coalition’s proposed agenda, and the new government’s priorities run counter to the prevail...

The global financial crisis exposed flaws in the methods and theories of macroeconomics. Certain aspects of the crisis were completely unexpected; other burgeoning problems were flagged up but explained away, and thus allowed to get worse. As the profession seeks to reinvent itself post-crisis and reassert its worth, what exactly has been learned and what changes have been made to the practice of...

The deepening and enlargement of Europe’s capital markets has long been a policy target for the EU – indeed, it is a flagship priority of the current Commission. Many legislative proposals have been forwarded, and there is widespread agreement on the necessity of the Capital Markets Union (CMU) project, but few tangible measures have been formally adopted. Joining Bruegel director Guntram Wolff fo...

The EU's transport sector is now a significant burden in the context of commitments made under the Paris Agreement to reduce carbon emissions. Transport is the only sector in which Europe's CO2 emissions are now higher than in 1990. Countermeasures are imperative, but it is not a simple challenge to abandon car-friendly policies; policymakers are not blind to economic benefits brought about by the...

As global trade war continues to unfold, Bruegel director Guntram Wolff is joined for this Director's Cut of 'The Sound of Economics' podcast by Bernd Lange MEP, chair of the Committee on International Trade (INTA), to discuss Europe's options. Increasingly it appears that the EU will have to choose between standing strong with the established laws of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), or strikin...

In this week’s Director’s Cut of ‘The Sound of Economics’ podcast, Bruegel director Guntram Wolff talks with Nicolas Véron, senior fellow at Bruegel, about the implementation of a European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS), one of the three pillars needed for the completion of banking union. Significant progress has been made on European banking supervision and resolution schemes, but the debate on...

Proponents of blockchain see it as the future – but when might it become the present? In this latest episode of ‘The Sound of Economics’ we welcome Julio Faura, global head of innovation at Banco Santander, and Johan Pouwelse, associate professor at Delft University of Technology, to help illuminate the blockchain concept and where it could be taking us. The development and implementation of block...

In this week’s Director’s Cut of ‘The Sound of Economics’ podcast, Bruegel director Guntram Wolff hosts a discussion with Bruegel fellows Alicia García-Herrero and André Sapir on where Europe will position itself between the two major trading powers of China and the United States if relations continue to cool. Bruegel director Guntram Wolff begins his regular Director’s Cut of ‘The Sound of Econom...

Ongoing negotiations over the next multiannual financial framework represent an opportunity for the EU to support its new priorities, such as increased investment in border control and defence. However, new investment necessitates either an expansion in the size of the budget or cuts to other sectors – each a difficult sell to different Member States. Brexit compounds the problem of finding funds...

In this episode our senior fellow, André Sapir discusses with Uri Dadush, non-resident scholar here at Bruegel about President Trump's announcement to apply a 25% tariff on all steel and a 10% tariff on all aluminium imports into the United States.