Atanas Pekanov
atanaspekanov.bsky.social
Atanas Pekanov
@atanaspekanov.bsky.social
Former Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria (2021, 2022-2023)
Economist - Monetary and Europe
To be successful you need to built on this small step with growth-enhancing policies, with reforms that ensure the rule of law and with investing in your talents, technology and well-working institutions. Without all this, the euro will not lead you there where you want to be.
November 6, 2025 at 4:23 PM
So to summarize - for 25 years we have had no control on monetary policy, for 5 years we have also outsourced part of our banking supervision. Now we get to be represented at the main decision-making body of the ECB - and it will be up to us how well we are represented. 7/n
November 6, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Yet the biggest benefit I believe is being able to participate in decisions - which we have now for 25 years outsourced to others. The way the currency board works, we have decided that the ECB will decide our monetary policy and we will just obey. 6/n
November 6, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Cost savings for households however will come from eliminating conversion costs - when sending money, buying & travelling. Remittances from Bulgarians abroad have sometimes been higher than FDI! And conversion costs can be up to 3%-4% (which is crazy) 5/n
November 6, 2025 at 4:23 PM
The euro in Bulgaria cant be seriously expected to lower interest rates for households right away - interest rates in Bulgaria have become detached from ECB interest rates in recent years and barely move - due to overliquidity in the banking system and lack of competition. 3/n
November 6, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Calls to break the euro are back in vogue so I decided to write again on why Bulgaria is joining now and how it helps us – with better ratings, saving costs and improving our EU representation. The euro is a vital geopolitical step, but not a panacea if u have bad policies. 1/n
November 6, 2025 at 4:23 PM
In this position, you will be able to learn more about state-of-the-art models of household inequality and monetary policy and work with distributional data on household balance sheets. More info here:
www.wifo.ac.at/en/news/wifo...
July 25, 2025 at 11:05 AM
One of the most inspiring economists of our time, hard to imagine anybody deserving it more. Congratulations
@s-stantcheva.bsky.social for winning the John Bates Clark Medal! Amazing work on public economics, taxation, innovation, political economy and much more! Chapeau!
April 22, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Very happy to be chosen again by @europarl.europa.eu ECON Committee to serve as an expert on the Monetary Policy Expert Panel for the next 4 years. The Panel provides insights to the ECON Committee on monetary policy to prepare the Monetary Dialogue with ECB President Lagarde. @wifo.bsky.social
February 4, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Delighted to talk this Friday at the Austrian National Bank Research Seminar on my research on Monetary Policy & the Redistribution Channel in the Euro area. In this paper, I show how implicit redistribution after interest rate cuts amplifies the effects of monetary policy.
January 16, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Total EU contingent liabilities have been on a steady rise (from less than 50 bn € before 2020 to more than 350 bn € in 2023); they will continue increasing (to an estimated max of 612 bn € by 27) - mainly driven by RRF loans and macro-financial assistance (loans part) to Ukraine.
December 2, 2024 at 7:11 PM
In our @wifo.bsky.social study for the EP, we analyse EU contingent liabilities - financial obligations the size & occurrence of which depends on events that are hard to predict. In 2022 the EU had contingent liabilities of 312 bn €, a significant increase.
www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etud...
December 2, 2024 at 7:11 PM
Some days ago I spoke to the European Parliament BUDG Committee on a technical, yet important topic - EU contingent liabilities - that is the long-run fiscal risks to the EU budget, which are hard to predict and account for. 💶
@danusenerudova.bsky.social
December 2, 2024 at 7:11 PM
Implication for the ECB is that even if in line with endogenous currency area theory member countries converge in inflation differentials and output gaps, the interest rate policy of the ECB will have different effects in different member states. A challenge.
November 17, 2024 at 5:52 PM
When I furthermore impute heterogeneous earnings elasticities, this amplifies considerably the redistribution channel further. I compute relative shares of each channel in total dC – in an exercise comparable to the one in Kaplan-Moll-Violante, and decompose direct and indirect effects.
November 17, 2024 at 5:52 PM
The main point is that household heterogeneity (distribution of MPCs, balance sheets, income elasticities) changes consumption response dC to monetary policy. I show household heterogeneity in the € area amplifies interest rate change effects on consumption by between 15% & 37% in relation to RANK.
November 17, 2024 at 5:52 PM
Starting to post also here, here we go - a new version of my paper on monetary policy and redistribution - now with section on the connection between inequality & monetary policy. More inequality is related to more potent monetary policy in the Euro area.
atanaspekanov.com/wp-content/u...
November 17, 2024 at 5:52 PM
Movement on this is necessary from Member States, Comm and EU Parliament, if we do not want to continue losing ideas and capital. Some of the consensus steps are listed in my recent paper for the EU Parliament on finishing the CMU. www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/2887...
November 14, 2024 at 11:38 AM
This week in my class in Economic Policy at WU Wien
we simulated a mock ECB Press Conference. Some very promising future ECB Presidents and Vice Presidents, as well as journalists in the class! : )
And I had the honour to play Wolfgang Proissl! : )
December 8, 2023 at 4:12 PM
A real pleasure to give a talk at the European University Institute @STGEUI last week on Europe, the governance of NextGenerationEU, the euro adoption in Bulgaria & governance in crisis times. An amazing place and a great community at the @EUI! Thanks for the invitation.
November 27, 2023 at 7:48 PM
Teaching (and studying) macro and monetary policy is fun. ⭐

Топ въпроси и разговори за еврозоната, паричната политика и еврото тази седмица със студентите в УНСС в лекцията ми по макро. 📖
November 12, 2023 at 4:30 PM