News Archive

The unanimity requirement for EU legislation on taxation in the Council has come under attack. Early this year, the European Commission launched an initiative to introduce majority voting for tax-policy decisions. Friedrich Heinemann analyses the arguments of the Commission and finds criticism unconvincing and misleading in this EconPol opinion.

Freedom of movement of workers is one of the fundamental ‘four freedoms’ of the European Union and has been in force for decades. Economists have long considered that labour mobility is too low in EU, but this is changing as more and more EU citizens move to other Member States to work. Cinzia Alcidi and Daniel Gros examine the factors that have driven the growth in intra-EU labour mobility in this latest EconPol opinion.

The recent financial crisis and subsequent global recession have been followed by a wave of macroprudential measures in the housing market. At the same time, governments have a long tradition of conducting tax policies which encourage households to acquire owner-housing. These tax advantages may be at least partly responsible for the need to regulate borrowing. In terms of policy, the goal should be to identify instruments that reduce the negative effects of household leverage while minimizing the welfare costs to households. This EconPol policy brief examines the joint effects of the tax system and credit regulation.

The large deterioration in France’s current account balance during the euro’s first decade was mainly due to its poor export performances. Although there have been no more market share losses since 2012, French export growth lags behind that of our European partners. This EconPol policy report examines the continuing sluggishness of France’s trade performances over recent years, marked in particular by its surprising inability to make any significant and lasting reduction in the trade deficit or regain back lost market shares.

Immigration increases support for far-right political candidates and reduces support for far-left candidates, with areas with low-educated non-European immigrants providing the biggest boost to the far-right. These are the conclusions of a paper released by EconPol Europe. In the paper, forthcoming in the June issue of the European Economic Review, researchers examined to what extent changes in immigration and trade patterns explain voting for far-left and far-right candidates in French presidential elections from 1988 until 2017. They control for the effects of changes in unemployment, education, and demographics.