The Greek minimum wage is apparently a point of contention between the Troika (ECB/EU/IMF) and the Greek government. The NY Times cites competitiveness gains as a rationale for the minimum wage cut: The goal of any pay cuts would be to help make Greek workers, who are generally less productive than workers elsewhere in Europe, [...]
Blistering! Amazing! Astounding! Terrifying! We start off the New Year with no shortage of adjectives to describe the month in markets that was January. While it remains unclear how broad the participation has been and to what degree the strength is sustainable, there is no question that investors, helped by the world’s central banks, moved [...]
Could the Fed spark a robust recovery by raising its federal funds rate target? For Bill Gross the answer is yes. He believes a key reason holding back the recovery is that the Fed is engaged in a type of financial repression where financial intermediaries’ net interest margins–the difference between their funding costs and lending [...]
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While we may be hours away from a partial (and certainly a stopgap) agreement in the talks among the Greek government, the troika and private sector creditors, it is doubtful that a deal will emerge in a fully constructed fashion that will survive its application in the real economy. It is likely that the only common view amongst [...]
It looks to me like the fiscal austerity driven recession is indeed resulting in a reduction in Greece’s relative labor costs irrespective of minimum wage policy. Isn’t that the point?
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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