Case sequence segments for EMU, ECB and Eurozone: A Eurozone country profile and related Euro matters. ACES Working Papers, August 2010

No European country employs a U.S.-style electoral college in presidential elections. Presidents with largely ceremonial functions are elected in some countries by the national parliament or a special assembly (Germany, Italy, Estonia, Turkey and others) or by the people in other countries (Greece, Poland, Slovakia and others). The presidents of Cyprus, Finland, France, Russia and Ukraine -- who have real decision-making power -- are elected directly by the voters. Keep in mind that no two countries are exactly alike in their institutional and electoral arrangements; all of these institutions and electoral systems are capable of being modified and adapted to suit national peculiarities and preferences.

Monetary policy and the over-investment cycle: China as an extreme case. CEPS Commentary, 27 August 2015

Against the background of the severe turbulence that is hitting global stock markets, Daniel Gros examines the looming slowdown in the Chinese economy in this CEPS Commentary, which he attributes to an underlying ‘real’ domestic investment/savings imbalance. Given the magnitude of this imbalance, Gros thinks it is unlikely to be solved by monetary policy and that the best that can be hoped for is that the central banks will manage to ‘paper over’ some of the unavoidable symptoms in credit markets.