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In this conference organized by the Economic Chamber of Greece on 24 November 2020, we presented joint NIESR and CEPS work on debt sustainability analysis (presented by Cinzia Alcidi) and the macroeconomic and fiscal path (presented by Corrado Macchiarelli and myself) during the three adjustment programmes from 2010 to 2018 in Greece. The panel included Yiannis Stournaras, Governor of the Bank of Greece, Christos Staikouras, Minister of Finance of the Hellenic Republic and former Ministers of Finance Euclid Taskalotos and Evangelos Venizelos. The topics discussed included (in no particular order): Should the debt relief have come earlier? Should private sector involvement have been done earlier? Was the length and severity of the adjustment programmes appropriate? Was the mix of expenditure cuts and tax rises appropriate? Should public investment have been ring-fenced? Were the fiscal multipliers underestimated? Was the EU framework appropriate to manage such crisis? European Stability...

The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to have a significant impact on medium-run inflation expectations particularly if considered in conjunction with large fiscal stimuli, ultra-loose monetary policies and the risk of de-globalization. The recent review of monetary policy framework by the Federal Reserve, focusing on an average inflation target strategy, highlights how difficult it can be to keep inflation expectations well-anchored when secular factors are at play (i.e. decline in the neutral real rate of interest , r*) and a shock of the scale of COVID-19 hits the economy, with ensuing uncertainty. This blog post was written with my colleague Corrado Macchiarelli and also published on  NIESR's blog  and  LSE's blog . Several factors could “in theory” light inflation expectations up over the medium-term There are many factors that play into the formation of inflation expectations. The large government stimuli, for instance, may have the effect of increasing the ba...

As part of NIESR's quarterly World Forecast, you will find a link to a box co-written by my colleagues Corrado Macchiarelli, Barry Naisbitt and myself about the risk of 'Japanisation' for the US and Euro Area economies. Here is an extract. Since the financial crisis, the Euro Area and US economies have had a period during which their economies showed some of the same characteristics as Japan. This note examines their experience in the context of whether they are en route to Japanisation. We conclude that the period from 2013 to 2016 was very similar to that situation but that the US has now clearly moved away from that experience. The Euro Area, however, while it cannot be described as having suffered Japanisation, has not moved as decisively away from that experience.