The Week That Was in Europe Klaus Adam & Dirk Schumacher

Euro Area labour markets show astonishing resilience: unemployment rates are hovering around record lows despite serious adverse shocks having hit the Euro Area economy. We explore different explanation for this pheonmon and discuss whether it can last.

In October 2023, the European Council agreed on a reform of the European electricity market. We shed light on what went wrong in electricity markets in the past & critically review the main elements of the reform, together with Professor Andreas Loeschel, Chair of Resource Economics and Sustainability at the Ruhr University, Bochum, and Chairman of the German Governments’ Expert Commission for Monitoring the Energy Transformation.

We discuss with Prof. Jean-Marie Meier (Wharton School) about technology transfer to China: (i) what coercive methods does China deploy to force a transfer?, (ii) how do Western CEOs' incentives contribute to technology transfer? Based on Jean-Marie's latest research finding, we provide surprising insights, in particular on the latter mechanism.

Jean-Marie Meier's research paper is available here:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949536#new_tab

We discuss the decisions taken by the ECB Governing Council and provide perspective on them.

We discuss with Guntram Wolff, CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), about the prospects for a European Geopolitical Strategy. What would a Geopolitical Strategy consist of? What could be its guiding principles? How could it be implemented?

We discuss with Tobias Linzert about central bank frameworks for liquidity provision, in particular, how they changed following the financial crisis and how they might evolve going forward. Tobias is Adviser and Analytical Coordinator at the ECB’s Directorate General Market Operations.