Students should be acquainted with basic knowledge of economics.
Students learn the costs and benefits of joining a monetary union, the main economic institutions that govern the Eurozone (EZ) and how the working of the EZ compares to that of other monetary areas.
The objectives of the EZ fiscal and monetary policy, the economic instruments that institutions can rely on, their implementation and effectiveness in are key topics of the course.
Specific events and related issues, namely the Great recession, the sovereign debt crisis, the 2020 pandemic, the recent rise of inflation will be used to study how institutions and policy instruments have changed in the recent years. How EZ institutions are reacting to climate change and policies implemented to cope with related socio-economic issues is also considered.
By the end of the course students will have also learnt the scales of the phenomena and will be able to use official statistics websites and publications to find relevant datasets and economic data.
-Costs and benefits of joining a monetary union.
-Complete and incomplete monetary unions.
-Self-fulling debt crisis.
-Monetary policy in EZ and the ECB.
- The ECB strategy and its revision
-Fiscal policy in EZ.
-Great recession, sovereign debt crisis, the 2020 pandemic and the post-pandemic economic situation:
- Facts
- Fiscal instruments
- Conventional and unconventional monetary policy.
- Financial stability issues.
- The European Green deal in the post-pandemic economy
Though lectures will be the main teaching method, attending students will be involved in the team preparation of in-depth analyses on specific topics. Each presentation will include an empirical section based on data analysis and will be followed by a discussion in the class. Own presentations as well as active participation, in the class, to others' presentations will be assessed. Non-attending students will be asked to hand-in analogous work.
Slides and additional lecture material (papers and articles) will be available in the moodle page as well as the reading lists for the topics.
70% based on a written exam with essay-like questions.
30% based on the presentation and participation in the class.
Students that will not attend lectures and that will not present their own work to the class will be asked to prepare two extra papers for the exam.
Changes with respect to what stated in the syllabus could be introduced if the course will be taught online or partly online.