Category Archives: Economics: Currencies

Is There Really Such A Thing As A Eurozone Credit Cycle?

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America, we know, has a currency union that works, and we know why it works: because it coincides with a nation — a nation with a big central government, a common language and a shared culture. Europe has none of these things, which from the beginning made the prospects of a single currency dubious.
Paul Krugman – Can Europe Be Saved?

All theory depends on assumptions which are not quite true. That is what makes it theory. The art of successful theorizing is to make the inevitable simplifying assumptions in such a way that the final results are not very sensitive.’ A “crucial” assumption is one on which the conclusions do depend sensitively, and it is important that crucial assumptions be reasonably realistic. When the results of a theory seem to flow specifically from a special crucial assumption, then if the assumption is dubious, the results are suspect.
Robert Solow, A Contribution To the Theory of Economic Growth, 1956

One of the key premises underpinning the establishment of the Euro as a common currency to be shared by a number of individual national states rather than one single nation was the central idea that the several economies of the participating countries would eventually converge to one common typology. That is to say, even if the individual nations would not be dissolved into one single superstate, then the idea was that the difficulty this could obviously create would be overcome by the generation of a number of different, but to all-important-economic-effects identical economies, each one a replica (in minature or “a lo grande”) of the other. Absent this, it is hard to see how people could have convinced themselves that having a single currency and a single monetary policy could possibly work in the longer term. Continue reading →

A question that will probably not be answered

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Via Nick Pearce at the IPPR, a fascinating chart of where the recovery ended up.

Germany's recovery: fuelled by sunshine

There’s clearly a fair amount of sunshine in the chart for Germany, although it’s very hard to be optimistic about the UK. But will anyone present anything like this chart for the Portuguese economy? And when people like Volker Wissing talk about imposing their adjustment, what is their estimate for the reduction in the German trade surplus? Take it away, Herr Bofinger:

Anyone who sees this as a virtue must ask themselves whether Germany’s export successes would have been possible if other countries had behaved as “virtuously” as we have. It says a lot about the level of the debate that such simple and fundamental insights are apparently difficult to get across in Berlin.

See also J. Random Weblog.

Die Debatte heute ist für mich an Scheinheiligkeit, Zufriedenheit, und schlichte Verlogenheit kaum zu überbieten.

Surely There Is Nothing “Funny” About What Is Going On In Japan?

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As Japanese officials continue to toil away in what we all hope will be a successful bid to avert a worst case scenario nuclear meltdown even while thousands of Japanese still remain missing and unaccounted for, financial market participants across the globe have been struggling with themselves to answer one and the same question: just how serious are the economic consequences of all this devastation likely to be? Continue reading →

One Step Forward in the Euro Zone?

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It would have been hard to believe only a few weeks ago that the euro zone could be the source of any good news let alone news to help push the market forward. Yet, with last week’s successful bond auctions and the pledge of international superpowers such as Japan and China to buy Euro zone debt and the ECB’s sudden more hawkish tones, the obvious question is; are we out the woods yet? Continue reading →

And Then There Were Seventeen….

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“If you know your Thucydides and the Melian dialogue you know that small countries rely most on everyone following the rules. That’s why we follow the rules. If there are no rules, then the big will do what they want,”
Estonian President Toomas Ilves in an interview with the EU observer

In a blog post which has gathered a certain notoriety, Paul Krugman recently sent the Estonians his condolences. I will send them, not my condolences, but my congratulations, and these not for the somewhat dubious honour of being allowed to join the Eurozone, or even for having carried out a highly successful “internal devaluation” (this outcome is still in doubt), but rather for their stubborness, courage and tenacity. These are indeed hard (and enduring) men and women. And in honour of their courage I offer them a homage, in the form of two charts. The first of these is the latest Estonian industrial production one.


While the second is the Spanish equivalent.

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Turkey’s Audacious Experiment In “Post Modern” Monetary Policy

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The recent decision of the Turkish Central Bank to lower rather than to raise interest rates in an risky attempt to quench the inflation flames that many feel are threatening to engulf what some call an “overheating” economy (or here) has lead to a good deal of heart-searching and consternation in the economic and financial press of late. After all, at the end of the day aren’t they doing exactly the opposite of what the text book says they should? Well, as is usual in the realm of the dismal science, all is not exactly what it seems to be. Continue reading →

Latvia compared to Iceland: A tale of “The Harder They Come, the Harder They Fall*”

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Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner in economics 2008, when in need of the antithesis of a role model for economic policy often chooses Latvia. He has been very critical of the insistence of the authorities to maintain the fixed exchange rate when the country faces recession and double-digit unemployment and of course he has a point. For me it is still not clear that the strategy of internal devaluation is better than an external one although I (still, especially if the authorities support it with reform-friendly 2011 and 2012 budgets) support the former. His Riga Mortis piece was fun but this post from 17 December 2010 lacks balance, I think, and certainly deserves some comment. Not to defend Latvia – the reckless boom-time ultra-procyclical fiscal policy in particular is very much the culprit of the current woes as I have argued previously (**) and its effects rightly produces comments and interest from Prof. Krugman and many others. Continue reading →

Another Lesson In How Not To Go About Things From The EU Commission

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The present generation of European leaders will doubtless be remembered for many things, but somewhere high up there on the list will be the appauling sense of bad-timing they seem to have when making critical announcements. The confusion caused by certain ill-considered remarks from Angela Merkel about how private sectors bondholders would need to participate in future EU bailout processes is evidently one good example. Another, without doubt is going to be the decision by EU Commissioner Olli Rehn to appear before the world’s press today (yes, today of all days, one day after the sensitive announcement of the Irish Bank Bail-out plan and the decision to create the European Financial Mechanism), and inform the assembled throngs that as far as the EU Commission could see Spain will not be sticking to its 6% of GDP fiscal deficit committment next year, simply because according to EU calculations the deficit is going to be 6.4% – unless, of course – there is another round of fiscal reduction measures. Continue reading →

Greece Is Almost Certainly “On Track” – But Towards Which Destination Is It Headed?

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“There is a difficulty that is widely recognized that the amount [of debt] to be repaid is high in 2014 and 2015,” Giorgios Papaconstantinou (the Greek Finance Minister).

“We are confident that Greece will be able to return to the markets. But whether it will be able to return to the markets on a scale that allows Greece to pay off its European partners and the IMF, that is a question.”…”We have a number of options. If paying off the €110 billion loan proves to be a question, we stand ready to exercise some of those options” – Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF team in the ECB-EU-IMF troika delegation.

“In the rushed last-minute deal to forestall certain bankruptcy, everyone missed one very important fact. That the memorandum created an unrealistic and immense borrowing squeeze on the feckless Greek state for the next five years.”
Nick Skrekas – Refusing Greek Loan Extensions Defies Financial Reality, Wall Street Journal

Get On The Right Track Baby!

According to the latest IMF-EU report Greece’s reform programme remians “broadly on track” even if the international lenders do acknowledge that this years fiscal deficit target will now not be met and that a fresh round of structural measures is needed if the country is to generate a sustained recovery. My difficulty here must be with my understanding of the English lexemes “remains” and “sustainable”, since for something to remain on track it should have been running along it previously (rather than never having gotten on it), and for something – in this case a recovery – to be sustained, it first needs to get started, and with an economy looking set to contract by nearly 4% this year, and the IMF forecasting a further shrinkage of 2.6% next year, many Greeks could be forgiven for thinking that talk of recovery at this point is, at the very least, premature. A more useful question might be “what kind of medicine is this that we are being given”, and “what are the realistic chances that it actually works”. Unfortunately, in the weird and wonderful world of Macro Economics, witch doctors are not in short supply. Continue reading →

Mr Zapatero Said What……….?

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Spain’s Tinsa Price Index was out last week, and showed Spanish property prices fell again in September, and at an accelerating rate. As Tinsa point out in their report, both “Metropolitan Areas and municipalities on the Mediterranean Coast,” whose rates experienced a significant drop from the previous month, have contributed decisively to this steep decline”.

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