Ferdinando Giugliano

The European Central Bank has been at the forefront of the euro zone’s economic response to the Covid-19 crisis. As political leaders scramble to conjure up a joint fiscal response, the central bank’s governing council can afford to stand still when it meets on Thursday. Since the pandemic in…

The “elephant chart” has been the most influential graph of the past decade in economics. It showed that in the 20 years before the financial crisis, global income growth largely benefitted two groups of people: the middle classes of emerging markets, such as China, and the ultra-rich around the…

The European Union’s political leaders will meet next week to negotiate the details of their joint fiscal response to the Covid-19 crisis. The Netherlands has emerged as the main villain opposing the plan, as Prime Minister Mark Rutte demands that countries should implement economic reforms in…

After the great recession, the American economy rebounded faster and stronger than the euro zone, raising doubts over the effectiveness of the “European social model.” As Europe emerges from the first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic in better shape than the US, its combination of welfare states and…

The first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic hit especially hard in the most affluent cities of Europe, including Paris, London, Madrid and Milan. The virus seemed to be a “great leveler” that did not distinguish between the rich and the poor. The continent’s latest string of outbreaks appears very…

The scandal at Wirecard AG hasn’t just exposed a multi-billion dollar hole in the accounts of one of Germany’s most hyped fintech companies. It has also revealed a void at the heart of the country’s regulatory regime. Angela Merkel’s government needs to ask itself some tough questions about the…

There’s a new bad idea doing the rounds in Europe. Many governments are convinced that a reduction in value-added tax will help relaunch their economies. Some, including Germany, have already wielded the ax. Others, such as Italy and the UK., are taking this option seriously. But the benefits of…

European Union countries are experimenting with new ways of dealing with the coronavirus. Germany, Portugal and Italy have all enforced selective or “smart” lockdowns, shutting down smaller regions in response to new outbreaks as opposed to bringing their entire countries to a halt. This…

The European Union prides itself on its tough antitrust regime. It is one of the pillars of the single market. But a recent court ruling, which overturned a Brussels decision to block a British telecoms merger, has put this at risk. At the same time, some of the EU’s most powerful states are…

During the euro-zone crisis at the beginning of the last decade, many European citizens felt they were paying an unfair price for Greece’s problems. As the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic fades in Europe, it’s the turn of the Greek people to feel aggrieved. The country has had one of the…