Question 2: Do you agree that, in a period of great uncertainty and after a prolonged period of weak real wage growth, monetary policy makers can afford to wait for greater certainty about real wage developments and building inflationary pressure before raising interest rates?
The key challenge for the policy makers is to judge the cost of raising interest prematurely rates in an environment with growing income inequality, income uncertainty and populism. I do not think we have good models to judge this trade-off, in particular how an economic slowdown can fuel populist sentiments with potentially important long-run consequences.
I think our current perspective on the Euro is shaped by the recent crisis and in particular by the Greek experience. Would Greece get out of the crisis faster and be better off without Euro? This is a difficult counterfactual to contemplate. I believe the problems at root of the Greek (or Spanish or Italian) economic problems, such as slow growth and high unemployment, are structural and there are limits what the independent monetary policy could do. With the recent rise of populist policies, being part of a monetary union might have more benefits than harms, as countries cannot avoid facing their structural problems. Yet, as Greek experience demonstrated there is an important human toll of this approach, and a common fiscal policy, with European-wide welfare-state measures, should be an important item in the EU agenda moving forward.
I think the defining future of the European Union is the free movement of goods and factors of production (labor and capital). Insisting on euro membership for countries that are waiting to join the EU, countries that are on the periphery of Europe, will simply delay their membership and can make more harm than good. Such a policy will make sense if the EU takes bigger steps towards fiscal and political union.
Question 2: Do you agree that quantitative well-being analysis should play an important role in guiding policy makers in determining macroeconomic policies?
While I think that empirical analysis, macro or micro, should make greater use of subjective well-being measures, I do not think that they can yet play a role in guiding policy. Macroeconomic policies work well when they have clear objectives, and when we understand their pros and cons clearly. I do not think insights from the quantitative well-being analysis satisfies these criteria yet.
The CFM surveys informs the public about the views held by prominent economists based in Europe on important macroeconomic and public policy questions. Some surveys focus specifically on the UK economy (as the CFM is a UK research centre), but surveys can in principle focus on any macroeconomic question for any region. The surveys shed light on the extent to which there is agreement or disagreement among these experts. An important motivation for the survey is to give a more comprehensive overview of the beliefs held by economists and in particular to include the views of those economists whose opinions are not frequently heard in public debates.
Questions mainly focus on macroeconomic and public policy topics. Although there are some questions that focus specifically on the UK economy, the setup of the survey is much broader and considers questions related to other countries/regions and also considers questions not tied to a specific economy.
The surveys are done in collaboration with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
Labour Markets and Monetary Policy
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Question 1: Do you agree that a strong labour market is a good indicator of building inflationary pressure?
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Question 2: Do you agree that, in a period of great uncertainty and after a prolonged period of weak real wage growth, monetary policy makers can afford to wait for greater certainty about real wage developments and building inflationary pressure before raising interest rates?
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Juncker's State of the Union Address
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Question 2: Do you agree that the euro has had more benefits than costs?
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Question 1; Do you agree that euro membership should be compulsory for all EU member states?
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Happiness and well-being as objectives of macro policy
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Question 2: Do you agree that quantitative well-being analysis should play an important role in guiding policy makers in determining macroeconomic policies?
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