Europe's missing yollies

Policy Brief, 27 August 2010

 In this Policy Brief, Bruegel Senior Fellow Reinhilde Veugelers and Michele Cincera, Professor, Université libre de Bruxelles, draw our attention to young leading innovators ('yollies'). They explain why the European Union's business research and development deficit, relative to the United States, can be attributed to the EU having fewer yollies, especially those that are less R&D intensive. This paper raises important and timely questions about the EU's innovation policy. The authors argue why policymakers should pay attention to the heterogeneity across young sectors and design sector-specific measures to boost innovation and growth in the EU. [Download it]

Fiscal federalism in crisis: lessons for Europe from the US

Policy Contribution, 12 July 2010

Drawing comparisons between the fiscal architecture and situation in the US and the European Union, Bruegel Research Fellow Zsolt Darvas answers three questions in this Policy Contribution- Why has the euro been hit so hard? How would a more federal European fiscal union closer to the US model have helped? How do the euro area’s fiscal architecture reform plans stand up in light of the US example? He concludes that a higher level of fiscal federation is not inevitable for the viability of the euro area, but current European fiscal reform proposals carry political risk and their implementation could be deficient or lack credibility. Introduction of a Eurobond covering up to 60 percent of member states’ GDP would be a much more preferable solution. [Download it]

France's employment policy puts the budget under pressure

16 August 2010 (Le Monde)

France is one of the countries that invests the most on employment policy. But with the public deficits crisis, there is a risk to indiscriminately cut on spending. In this article, Bruegel Director Jean Pisani-Ferry  argues that a better solution would be to devote funds to where they are needed the most  and to undertake structural reforms at the same time. [Download in French]

Europe’s stress tests: only one step towards banking repair

29 July 2010 ( Eurointelligence)

In this month’s column, Bruegel Senior Fellow Nicolas Véron analysis the implications of the bank stress tests announced earlier this month.  He looks at the positive and negative aspects of the results and explains why though European banks may have been given a clean sheet, a lot remains to be done to keep the banking sector resilient. [Download it]

This article also appeared in the Chinese news site Caixin, the German daily FT Deutschland and the Greek newspaper Kathimerini