Finance

June 7, 2018

Why the EU Needs the City Too

The UK might appear to have the most to lose from Brexit if City firms find it harder to sell financial services into the EU. But London has actually consolidated its position as the world’s leading financial centre since the vote to leave, helped by strong signals that the UK at least will keep its markets open. The EU should follow this lead.
February 28, 2018

Socially Useless? The Crucial Contribution of Finance to Economic Life

Financial firms serve many useful functions which individuals and households could scarcely undertake on their own. These functions include maturity transformation, matching lenders and borrowers at low cost, facilitating the transfer of risk and consumption across time and between people, monitoring, and diversification of investments.
February 16, 2018

Financial Stability Without Central Banks

A ‘free’ banking system without a central bank provides incentives for banks to act with restraint. Their lending policies are, in effect, tied to each other. If one over-reaches, it will be pulled back as others present notes to and demand reserves from the bank that is lending recklessly.
February 5, 2018

London’s Global Reach and the Half a Trillion Dollars Equity Prize

As the world’s leading international financial centre, London faces fascinating opportunities as well as some significant challenges in coming years. This is as a result of Brexit, increased international competition from other global financial centres, such as New York, and the changing face of finance itself.
January 24, 2018

How to Develop Secondary Markets for Non-performing Loans?

The ECB seeks to increase trading in non-performing loans by reducing the pricing gap between prospective investors and banks. For this to happen, there need to be structural reforms aimed at reducing recovery times, as well as better access to information about loans and debtors. Only when the price offered by investors is in line with the price demanded by banks will we see more activity in distressed debt markets.
November 7, 2017

The Day European Union Governments Spent the Last of Their Annual Revenues

EU central governments use up their resources December 6 on average, 25 days before the end of the year. This is almost seven days later than the year before, representing a significant improvement.
October 18, 2017

The Future of Eu Finances

This Position Paper is a response to the Reflection Paper on the Future of EU Finances by the European Commission. The goal of this Paper is to evaluate the outlook for EU Budget, its trends and ongoing discussions and to present EU budget reform solutions that would change Europe, make it prosperous.
March 1, 2014

Sin Taxes: the Examples of Alcohol and Tobacco

So‐called “sin” taxes are very much in fashion in France and elsewhere. With the aim of reducing “sinful” behaviour and financing the health care system, public authorities are planning to raise the tax load on alcohol and tobacco even higher.
March 1, 2014

The Government Debt Iceberg

Western governments have developed unfunded social insurance programmes where retiree benefits are paid for from the taxes of the working-age population. This means that an ageing population leads to 
rising expenditures that cannot be covered without increasing taxes on the young.