The Sound of Economics

The EU has been using trade policy to export its standards on competition policy, environmental protection and human rights among other policy areas, which has famously become known as ‘The Brussels Effect’. But this could eventually get in the way of trade deal negotiations. For example, the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement is bogged down by Amazon deforestation concerns since 2019.  But can the EU afford to prolong the trade deal negotiations with Latin America countries, given Latin America’s increasingly important role in global economics, from the reconfiguration of the global supply chains to being a key component for critical raw materials, which is a strategic emerging consumer’s market and an indispensable natural resource for the planet? In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro invites Alan Beattie, Alicia García-Herrero and David Kleimann to discuss the state of play of EU-LATAM trade relations and how the EU should proceed to showcase its commitment to trade openness and economic engagement.

At the start of the Covid-19 crisis, the European Commission suspended the fiscal rules that applied to member states to allow countries to use fiscal policy domestically to deal with health emergency. This suspension was further extended when Russia invaded Ukraine and cause a great energy crisis in the European Union. The suspension is now meant to be lifted in 2024 when the rules will come back into full operation. In this three-year period, the European Commission has also tried to update and modernise the fiscal framework in a proposal they put forward in April 2023. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Maria Demertzis invites Jeromin Zettelmeyer and Zsolt Darvas to evaluate this proposal. As they present in a recent paper, in this framework, medium-term fiscal adjustment requirements would be determined by country-by-country debt sustainability analysis (DSA), the 3 percent deficit ceiling and simple rules requiring minimum deficit and debt adjustments (‘safeguards’). These elements are controversial, with some EU countries (and us) preferring a DSA-based approach, while others prefer to stick to simple rules.   Relevant publications Darvas, Z., L. Welslau and J. Zettelmeyer (2023) ‘A quantitative evaluation of the European Commission´s fiscal governance proposal’, Working Paper 16/2023, Bruegel The economic governance review and its impact on monetary-fiscal coordination, Zsolt Darvas, Jeromin Zettelmeyer, In-Depth analysis, European Parliament

On 13 September 2023, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, delivered this year’s State of the Union address before the European Parliament. This is the last address of her current mandate. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro hosts André Sapir, Simone Tagliapietra and Jeromin Zettelmeyer to evaluate von der Leyen’s address regarding the European Green Deal, industrial policy, economic security, Ukraine and more.

European banking supervision has developed and matured by moving from being predominantly rules-based and heavily codified, to becoming more risk-focused and adaptable to rapidly changing economic circumstances.  Backstage at the Bruegel Annual Meetings 2023, Giuseppe Porcaro and Nicolas Véron speak with Sharon Donnery, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Ireland, to discuss the evolution of European banking supervision, the increasingly central role of risk assessment, as well as the prospects for the near future.

This year’s BRICS annual summit delivered the headline announcement of the group’s expansion: in January 2024, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will join the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa . In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro and Alicia García-Herrero are joined by Jim O’Neill, who coined the acronym BRIC, to discuss how the grouping has developed since its formation in 2009, the reasons behind this new expansion and the consequences it may have on the global economic and geopolitical landscape.

China has become a world leader in making and buying Electric Vehicles (EV), somehow under the radar. In fact, China today produces 54% of total EVs globally and with an even higher share for EV batteries.  How did China get there? In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro sits down with Alicia García-Herrero and Zeyi Yang to explore China’s EV industry. Together they discuss the country’s rapid rise in the market, its advancement on battery technology, as well as geopolitical implications with a growing chorus calling for de-risking. This episode is part of the ZhōngHuá Mundus series of The Sound of Economics. ZhōngHuá Mundus is a newsletter by Bruegel, bringing you monthly analysis of China in the world, as seen from Europe. Sign up now to receive it in your mailbox!

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the international balance of power. In the field of defence, beyond weaponry, AI is instrumental for various Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) tasks at the strategic, operational and tactical level, as well as automated reasoning, logistics, training, and much more. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro invites Sarah Shoker to discuss the evolving role of AI in defence.  They highlight AI's role in foreign policy decision-making and prediction, but stress that balanced human judgment is crucial due to AI's limitations. Speakers urge caution in AI integration, complementing, not replacing, human reasoning. International cooperation for responsible AI norms and regulations is also needed.

The forced mass-scale shift to work-from-home during the COVID-19 pandemic has changed both employees’ and employers’ perspectives on work location, demonstrating that more jobs could be done remotely than we could have imagined before.   Since we emerged from the pandemic, there is an ongoing debate about a full-scale return to office, as well as hybrid and remote work.   Employee surveys across different countries consistently indicate that employees prefer to remain working remotely and do not want to return to the office full time. At the same time, many companies are trying to bring their employees back to the office. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro speaks to Tatiana Andreeva about her latest work researching employers’ experience of working fully remotely during the pandemic and their approaches to returning to the office following the pandemic.  Relevant publication: Mulcahy, D., and T. Andreeva (2023) ‘Employer perspectives on employee work location: collaboration, culture and control’, Working Paper 05/2023, Bruegel This was produced within the project "Future of Work and Inclusive Growth in Europe" with the financial support of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.

The Sound of Economics is bringing you a summer 2023 special series, 'Read with Bruegel.' In this series, we have the pleasure of hosting renowned authors who will discuss various economic issues based on their insightful books. We hope this conversation will inspire you to explore their books and offer you some food for thought during your summer break. In this episode of the series, Nicolas Véron welcomes Ulrich Bindseil to discuss his latest book ‘Central Banking before 1800: A Rehabilitation’. Véron and Bindeil ponder the definition of central banking, whilst analysing pre-1800 central banking and the role of numerous other institutions across the European continent. They discuss the long and colourful history of central banking before 1800, from which important lessons for today's debates can be drawn.

The Sound of Economics is bringing you a summer 2023 special series, 'Read with Bruegel.' In this series, we have the pleasure of hosting renowned authors who will discuss various economic issues based on their insightful books. We hope this conversation will inspire you to explore their books and offer you some food for thought during your summer break. In this episode of the series, Simone Tagliapietra welcomes Daniel Yergin to discuss his book ‘The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations’.  The global energy order is being shaken by climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the rising tension between the West and China over critical raw materials. The discussants explore how these developments shape global supply chains, international co-operation and the course of technological advancement. They delve into what energy security might entail in different parts of the world and how varying national priorities can influence the speed of the green transition.