The Czech Republic is the first economy in central and eastern Europe to slide back into a full technical recession during the current downturn (evidently it is unlikely to be the last), with a 0.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter GDP decline in the last three months of 2011, after a 0.1 per cent drop in the previous [...]
Christina Romer does the Five Books interview and one of her recommended reads is a famous article by Peter Temin and Barry Wigmore titled “The End of One Big Deflation.” This is a great choice since it shows that even in a “balance sheet recession” facing a binding zero percent lower bound, monetary policy can [...]
With less than a month to go until Athens faces an amortization of €14.4 billion, the Greek government finally set the date for its “voluntary” debt swap. Bond holders will have three days, between March 8 and March 11, to tender their bonds. Although the prospectus and term sheet are yet to be released, creditors [...]
Slow Motion Train Wreck or Crisis Averted?
From Project Syndicate: Since late last year, a series of positive developments has boosted investor confidence and led to a sharp rally in risky assets, starting with global equities and commodities. Macroeconomic data from the United States improved; blue-chip companies in advanced economies remained highly profitable; China and emerging markets slowed only moderately; and the [...]
Convergence between eastern and western Germany took twenty years after true fiscal and political integration and trillions of dollars in investment and solidarity taxes. That’s the kind of hard slog and commitment we are talking about here. Politically, this won’t happen. So, plans for Greece to exit will become the default scenario.
Edward Hugh
Don't Shoot the Messenger
Congratulations to Edward Hugh whose EconoMonitor blog was #14 on CBNC's NetNet list of best alternative financial and economic blogs. Edward is a macro economist, who specializes in growth and productivity theory, demographic processes and their impact on macro performance, and the underlying dynamics of migration flows. Edward is based in Barcelona, and is currently engaged in research on aging, longevity, fertility and migration, and the impact of all of these on economic growth.
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