Smith, Y. (2014) “Ilargi: 40% of Eurozone Banks Are In Bad Shape“, Naked Capitalism Blog, 23 October. Yves here. While investors remain fixed on how much more the Fed and the ECB will pump into financial assets via QE, Eurozone banks lumber on in their walking wounded state. Deflationary pressures and lousy growth grind down weak and even once-good borrowers. And it’s not as if the banks who lent …Read More
Goodhart, C. & Schoenmaker, D. (2014) “The ECB as lender of last resort?“, VoxEU Organisation, 23 October. As part of the move to a banking union, the largest banks in the Eurozone will soon be supervised by the ECB. This column argues that supervision and the lender of last resort function should be seen as a joint product. After the introduction of the euro, the national central banks continued …Read More
Bill Gates (2014) “Why Inequality Matters“, LinkedIn Influencers, 15 October. A 700-page treatise on economics translated from French is not exactly a light summer read—even for someone with an admittedly high geek quotient. But this past July, I felt compelled to read Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century after reading several reviews and hearing about it from friends. I’m glad I did. I encourage you to read it …Read More
Miles, D. (2014) “‘Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht’ – what’s the best guidance on monetary policy?“, VoxEU Organisation, 22 October. Many central banks embrace forward guidance by announcing expected interest rate paths. But how likely it is that actual rates will be close to expected ones? This column argues that quantifying such uncertainty poses great difficulties. Precise probability statements in a world of uncertainty (not just risk) can be …Read More
The Economist Explains: “Why the German economy is in a rut“, The Economist, 21 October 2014. In the second quarter of this year the German economy shrank by 0.2%. Economists expect it to contract again in the third quarter, meaning that the economy will technically be in recession. Some believe that the economy will not grow until the middle of next year. This performance has taken some people by …Read More
CFI (2014) “Europe’s Original Sin and the Dangers of Doing Good“, Capital Finance International (cfi.co), 02 October. Carlos Rangel, the Venezuelan diplomat and essayist, once pointedly remarked that western nations often send their failed politicians – the dreamers, utopians, and other ineffectual romantics – to far-off places where they can do no harm other than to their host countries. Mr Rangel (1929-1988) deplored the lack of pragmatism and structure …Read More
Meltzer, P. J. (2014) “The Importance of the Internet and Transatlantic Data Flows for US and EU Trade and Investment“, Global Economy & Development – Brookings Institute, Working Paper 79, October 2014. The most globally significant bilateral trade and investment relationship is between the US and the EU An increasing amount of this economic relationship is underpinned by cross-border flows of data. Cross-border data flows between the US and …Read More
Hugh, E. (2014) “Does The Secular Stagnation Theory Have Any Sort of Validity?“, A Fistful of Euros: European Opinion Blog, 20 October. In a number of blog-posts (Paul Krugman’s Bicycling Problem, On Bubble Business Bound, The Expectations Fairy) I have examined some of the implications of the theory of secular stagnation. But I haven’t up to now argued why I think the hypothesis that Japan and some parts of …Read More
Dixon, H. (2014) “A New Euro Crisis?“, Reuters Breaking Views, 20 October. The markets are right to worry about the euro zone, the epicentre of last week’s fright. Its three big economies -Germany, France and Italy- are, in their own ways, stuck. There is, in theory, a grand bargain that might shift the malaise. This would involve deep structural reform by Berlin as well as Paris and Rome; quantitative …Read More
Hancké, B. (2014) “Two years after Mario Draghi’s ‘whatever it takes’ moment, the Eurozone is once again staring into the abyss“, LSE EUROPP, 21 October. Growth in the Eurozone has declined significantly over recent months, raising fears that Europe could be heading toward another economic crisis. Bob Hancké writes on what it would take to generate growth in Eurozone states. He argues that the best – and possibly only …Read More
