Archive for May, 2011
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Dirty Ratko’s Longterm Legacy
Don’t be fooled by the tightly cropped shots of Serbian nationalists protesting the extradition of fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Netherlands, where he will stand trial for crimes against humanity committed by his Bosnian Serb troops during the wars of Yugoslav succession. The Serb internet is filled with [...]
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Irish Looking to Leave Euro Zone
Yesterday morning I awoke to a note in response to a recent post that concerned the latest round of machinations from the ECB G8 and other collective groups looking to solve the world’s debt problems with more restructuring laid at the foot of the global tax payer. An old Irish American friend suggested the following: [...]
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Working, working…
The Central Bank of Turkey’s policies, that is… The April trade deficit, at USD 9.1bn, was significantly lower than expectations of around USD 10bn, on the back of both stronger-than-expected exports and especially lower-than-expected imports: So are the Central Bank’s policies starting to work their magic? Maybe, but it is too early to say. After [...]
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Greek Melt Up?
The European Union will have a final bailout for Greece “by the end of June and have ruled out a “total restructuring” of the nation’s debt” according to Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the group of euro-area finance ministers. Stocks rose around the world. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index climbed 1%, while the MSCI World Index [...]
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The IMF Head Can’t Come from Emerging Markets Unless They Get Behind a Candidate
It is time for the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund to come from an emerging market country. But that has been said often before. Whining about the injustice of the 65-year duopoly under which the IMF MD comes from Europe and the World Bank President comes from the US won’t change anything. Only [...]
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Weighing the Week Ahead: Economic Transition from Stimulus?
The long list of government stimulus and assistance programs were all intended to be temporary. As the programs gradually end, one question is paramount: Will there be a successful transition from government stimulus to a self-sustaining economic recovery? Some economists are maintaining solid growth forecasts for the remainder of the year. They see the current [...]
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It’s Official: Housing Double Dip Is Here
Case Shiller is out, and it confirms what we have known for quite some time: Without artificial government stimulus, Housing is going lower. The double dip in Housing has now been officially recognized: “Data through March 2011, released today Case-Shiller Home Price Indices show that the U.S. National Home Price Index declined by 4.2% in [...]
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Why Privatisation Is Not the Panacea for Greece
How should Greece try to reduce its debt? Some say Greece should privatise some of its ports and tourist hotspots. While on paper such a move might significantly reduce the debt, this column argues that these calculations rely on some shaky assumptions. Such a sale could make Greece worse off overall. George Papaconstantinou, Greece’s minister of finance, [...]
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Addendum to Hurriyet column: Job application to Central Bank of Turkey
Before I get to the more serious stuff, I should tell you that, commenting on my column at the Daily News website, two readers invited me to work for the government. I sincerely thank them for the kind words & compliments, but I doubt the current government would want to have me:). I know several [...]
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Unemployment and Output Gaps in a New Keynesian DSGE
The output gap is big and negative; the unemployment gap is big and positive. From “Unemployment in an Estimated New Keynesian Model” (ungated version), by Jordi Galí, Frank Smets, and Rafael Wouters: In this paper we have developed a reformulated version of the Smets-Wouters (2007) framework that embeds the theory of unemployment proposed in Galí [...]
