Shifting Europe from Austerity to Growth: A Proposed Investment Programme for 2012-2015

Abstract

As economic performance has deteriorated in most European countries, EU public opinion and leaders have begun to stress with increased urgency the need for far greater emphasis on growth. Meaningful actions on a sufficient scale have however not yet been taken, although the recent approval by the European leaders of a similar pro-growth program to the one present here is encouraging. The purpose of the present note is to make specific proposals on how one key and successful EU institution, the European Investment Bank (EIB), can expand its lending significantly, in ways that will make a meaningful contribution to growth, particularly in the countries whose economies have suffered most from the sovereign debt crisis. We will also examine the role that EU Structural Funds can play on their own, and especially, as a complement to EIB lending, to further contribute to EU growth. One important advantage of our approach is that with fairly limited public resources, it can achieve a very large impact, due to the benefits of leverage.

JEL classification: E22 ; E62 ; H54 ; G01