Janssen, R. (2014) “Why Austerity Is Contagious“, Social Europe Journal, 27 October. Austerity is contagious: The case of France France is finding itself between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, with 54% of companies reporting in the third quarter 2014 that they find activity constrained by a lack of customers, the main problem is clearly on the side of demand. On the other hand, its …Read More
Richter, W. (2014) “The Wrath of Draghi: First German Bank Hits Savers with Negative Interest Rate“, ΘZeroHedge, 30 October. Deutsche Skatbank, a division of VR-Bank Altenburger Land, which was founded in 1859, is not the biggest bank in Germany, but it’s the first bank to confirm what German savers have been dreading for a while: the wrath of Draghi. Retail and business customers with over €500,000 on deposit as …Read More
STRATFOR (2014) “Europe: Building a Banking Union“, Europe’s Economic Crisis Timeline, 30 October. Summary The recent stress tests by the European Central Bank offered few surprises and did not cause any significant political or financial reactions in the Continent. However, these tests were only the beginning of a complex process to build a banking union in the European Union. Unlike the stress tests, the next steps in this project …Read More
Mody, A. (2014) “Are the Eurozone’s fiscal rules dying? – if so: good riddance“, Bruegel Institute, 28 October. The European Commission and European Council have blinked. Reprimanding France and Italy for their transgressions of the fiscal rules was too risky. With face-saving measures, France and Italy will now break the eurozone’s prized fiscal rules. While unseemly in the eurozone context, this is a good economic outcome. Forcing deeper austerity …Read More
Jassaud, Ν. (2014) “The role of corporate governance in strengthening banks“, VoxEU Organisation, 30 October. Sound corporate governance is essential for a well-functioning banking system and the integrity of financial markets. This column discusses the corporate governance of Italian banks, its regulatory framework, and the specific challenges arising from the role played by foundations and large cooperatives. Although Italian banks have recently made progress in improving their corporate governance, …Read More
Funk Kirkegaard, J. (2014) “Why France Needs Political Reform“, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 29 October. Despite recent unflattering jokes, France is not an economic basket case. Blessed with numerous competitive high value-added industries, France is also visited by more foreign tourists than any other country in the world. It has also performed far better than the euro area periphery and the islands off the coast of the Continent …Read More
Acharya, V. & Steffen, S. (2014) “Making sense of the comprehensive assessment“, VoxEU Organisation, 29 Οκτωβρίου. The ECB conducted a comprehensive assessment of banks and identified capital shortfalls for 25 banks, totalling €25 billion. In this column, the authors provide a number of benchmark stress tests to estimate capital shortfalls. The analyses suggest possible capital shortfalls between €80 billion and more than €700 billion depending on the model. They …Read More
Wren-Lewis, S. (2014) “Why the Eurozone suffers from a Germany problem“, Mainly Macro Blog, 26 October. When, almost a year ago, Paul Krugman wrote six posts within three days laying into the stance of Germany on the Eurozone’s macroeconomic problems, even I thought that maybe this was a bit too strong, although there was nothing in what he wrote that I disagreed with. Yet as Germany’s stance proved unyielding …Read More
Mishra, P. (2014) “How Germany Conquered Europe in 25 Years“, Bloomberg View, 26 October. On Nov. 9, Berlin will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall that divided the city during much of the Cold War. At the time, images of exuberant wall-breakers signaled the end of communism. A quarter-century later, the event seems to have also been a prelude to the rebirth of Berlin and …Read More
Salamone, A. (2014) “Britain’s EU membership hangs by one less thread“, Britain’s Europe Blog, 27 October. Britain, it seems, owes the European Union a certain sum of money. In every year since 2002, it has underpaid into the EU budget and the day of reckoning has finally arrived. However, as usual when it comes to ‘Europe’ for the UK, symbolism triumphs over substance. The country has been hit with …Read More
