Manski, C. F. (2014) “Facing up to uncertainty in official economic statistics“, VoxEU Organisation, 21 May.   Many economic statistics move markets when first released, and move them again when they are revised. This column suggests ways of measuring the transitory statistical uncertainty in estimates of official statistics based on incomplete data and the permanent statistical uncertainty stemming from survey non-response. Government agencies would be doing the public and policymakers …Read More

Aziz, J. (2014) “Is It Time To End Fractional Reserve Banking?“, Pieria Network, 12 May.   The moment you realize that the financial system has an inherent fragility at its heart — that people can simply lose confidence in the system, withdraw their deposits en mass, and because banks only keep a fraction of their deposits on hand cause a liquidity crisis where the bank runs out of money — …Read More

Schadler, S. (2014) “The IMF’s preferred creditor status: Questions after the Eurozone crisis”, VoxEU Organisation, 28 April.   The IMF has had a preferred creditor status throughout the history of its lending. This implies that borrowing countries are expected to give priority to meeting their obligations to the IMF over other creditors. This column reviews the onset of this preferred status, its purpose, and the way it changed after the …Read More

Fatas, A. (2014) “The Price is Wrong”, Antonio Fatas on the Global Economy Blog, 14 April.   The Euro area inflation came lower than expected in March and this has raised concerns about deflation (or “lowflation” as labelled by the IMF). In today’s Financial Times, Jurgen Stark, a former ECB board member argues that deflation or low inflation is not a problem. One of his arguments is that there are …Read More

Sakalis, A. (2014) “A black cloud over the EU?”, Euro Crisis in the Press, LSE, 14 April.   The newly announced Le Pen-Wilders alliance in the European parliament has re-ignited speculation about the rise of the far-right in Europe. What can we expect from this new EU supergroup? The recent success of the Front National in French local elections, as well as the announcement of a Le Pen-Wilders alliance in …Read More

Grahl, J. & Lysandrou, P. (2014) “The proposed EU Financial Transactions Tax is both illogical and likely to be economically damaging“, LSE EUROPP, 09 April.   In 2011, the European Commission proposed a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) to raise revenue from the financial sectors in EU countries following the financial crisis. To date, however, only 11 EU states have so far agreed to implement such a tax. John Grahl and …Read More

Legrain, P. (2014) “Europe’s Bogus Banking Union“, Project Syndicate, 08 April.   LONDON – After a 16-hour marathon negotiating session ending on March 20, politicians, technocrats, and journalists were all keen to declare the deal on the final piece of Europe’s banking union a success. But appearances are deceptive. While the “banking union” may soon exist on paper, in practice the eurozone banking system is likely to remain fragmented along …Read More

Weeks, J. (2014) “Alter The European Union: A Conference In Helsinki For Progressive Change“, Social Europe Journal, 04 April.   At the end of March a coalition of progressive parties and groups organized a meeting in Helsinki focusing on fostering change in the European Union (political program summarized here). For anyone seeking to transform the present EU of the 1% into an EU for the 99% (see my new book, …Read More