Ramon Marimon's picture
Affiliation: 
European University institute and UPF-BarcelonaGSE
Credentials: 
Professor of Economics
Pierre Werner Chair

Voting history

The ECB’s Green Agenda

Question 2: Would you support changing the ECB’s mandate to incorporate the EU’s target of carbon neutrality by 2050, if such a change is deemed legally necessary to adopt your preferred approach?

Answer:
No
Confidence level:
Very confident
Comment:
Then we should also incorporate an unemployment target (e.g. not to purchase bonds of firms that fire workers?), a health industry target, you name it. This is not, and should not be, the job of the ECB or any independent Central Bank.

 Question 1: Which of the following actions is the most advisable approach for European Central Bank to address the environmental impact of its bond-purchasing policies?

Answer:
Banning bond purchases from industries with current negative environmental impact
Confidence level:
Not confident
Comment:
I would also insist in what should not be done: "pure green rhetoric", as if the ECB had to follow the EC (changing) mandate, which should not. Having said this, the ECB may well take into account that some firms have a (well documented) negative environmental externality and stop purchasing their bonds.

Post Covid-19 Potential Output in the Eurozone

Question 2: How much lower will the potential growth rate of GDP in the Eurozone in 2025 be due to Covid-19 relative to pre-Covid forecasts?

 

Answer:
No different
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
Historically has been like this and even if the COVID crisis is different in many respects, is not clear why should it be much different regarding growth trends.

Question 1: How much lower will the potential level of GDP in the Eurozone in 2025 be due to Covid-19 relative to pre-Covid forecasts?

 

Answer:
Between 2% and 5%
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
The main problem is not the potential level in the Eurozone in 2025, but how the Eurozone divide, which already increased after the financial-euro crisis, will be in 2025?

The Eurozone COVID-19 Crisis: EU Policy Options

Question 2: What is the best mechanism to pay for economic support provided by and to EU member states to combat the COVID-19 crisis?

Answer:
Expanded EU budget (with possible borrowing at the EU level)
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
As we have argued (A. Bénasy et al. VoxEU 6 & 20/04/20), I will use several instruments, but if I had to signal one I would have a Recovery Fund, based on Expanded EU budget, but managed outside the EC, possibly EIB.

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