The Robert Schuman Centre hosts the Pierre Werner Chair Programme on Monetary Union, named in memory of Pierre Werner, one of the architects of economic and monetary union, and generously funded by the Luxembourg Government.

Economic and monetary union will make it possible to realize an area within which goods and services, people and capital will circulate freely and without competitive distortions, without thereby giving rise to structural or regional disequilibrium

Werner Report, 1970. Download the full report.

Almost fifty years later, the successful development of the European Union and the EMU has vindicated – and, in most dimensions, gone beyond – the farsighted vision of Pierre Werner. But the EU experience – in particular, the euro crisis – has also shown how difficult it is to eliminate ‘structural or regional disequilibrium’ or to eliminate ‘competitive distortions’ while fostering growth, macroeconomic stability and maintaining or developing the European Welfare state(s).

Fortunately, these and related challenges nourish new research in macroeconomic theory, policy and institutional design, which provides a theoretical and empirical basis to the EMU policy debate and the further development of its architecture. To contribute to this research defines the agenda of the Pierre Werner Chair and its activities.

Chair Holder

Giancarlo Corsetti is Pierre Werner Chair at the Robert Schuman Centre and Professor of Economics at the European University Institute. Previously he was Professor of Macroeconomics at the University of Cambridge, where he was director of the Keynes Fund and of the Cambridge-INET Institute. A Fellow of the British Academy, he is a consultant at the European Central Bank and a regular visiting professor in central banks and international institutions. Corsetti is also a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), where he serves as coordinator of the European Macroeconomic Policy Research and Policy Network (RPN).

He is a member of the European Economic Association, where he served as Program Chairman of the 2007 Annual Congress in Budapest. Since 2018, Corsetti is a member the United Nations High-level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs. His contributions range from models of the international economy and open macro models; to empirical and theoretical work on currency, financial and sovereign crises; monetary and fiscal policy; and international finance.

 

 

Topics

  • The European Union, and euro area, monetary and fiscal framework
  • Economic governance in the European Union
  • Public finance issues in the context of EMU, with particular attention to sovereign debt management.
  • The growth, development of European financial institutions (European Banking Union), with particular attention to the link between monetary, fiscal and financial stability.
  • The design of monetary stabilization policies, goals and instruments.
  • The fiscal-monetary mix.
  • The legal aspects of fiscal and monetary EU policies and institutions and their possible reforms.
  • Risk-sharing within the European Union and the role of the European Stability Mechanism as crisis prevention mechanism.
  • The links between financial, monetary, fiscal and social stability.
  • EU social protection policies
  • The economic and institutional consequences of the Euro in the world monetary system.
  • Fiscal and monetary consequences of EU challenges: ageing, climate change, green transition, digitalization, globalization, and other ‘tail-risks’.