RT @jamescrabtree: Lovely intro on this @VJMallet piece on Afghanistan’s hopeless economy, from last week — http://t.co/2Tq7nAMx4s
15 minutes ago
Roubini Topic Archive: Emerging Europe and CIS
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Staring Into the Ukrainian Economic and Political Abyss
It’s been a long time now since Paul Krugman spoke of the Ukrainian economy epitomizing the arrival of what he then termed the “second great depression“, and it’s been an even longer long time since we lay awake at night dreaming about the coming conquests of the Orange Revolution. It’s also been a good time since I looked [...]
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Quick Reality Czech
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 [...]
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From Here to Eternity, Hungarian Style
Hungary’s unofficial ambassador to the IMF,Tamás Fellegi, is reportedly facing a “terrible atmosphere” after his arrival in Washington on an exploratory mission whose objective is to open up communication about a new financial lifeline for the country. Frankly, given the recent record of relations between the two institutions involved it isn’t hard to understand why. Leaving aside [...]
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Is the Risk Accompanying Estonia’s Eurozone Membership Really that Low?
“But the go-ahead Estonians are already scenting the next challenge. Should the single currency crumble, they are determined to be on the inside track for any new German-centred “super-euro”. Goodbye “eastern Europe”; welcome to the “new north”.” -Edward Lucas, writing in The Economist Estonia’s economy put in another sterling performance in the second quarter of [...]
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Estonia’s Now-You-See-Me Now-You-Don’t Inflation Rate
Just to follow up on my recent long Estonia post, a couple of new data points have caught my attention recently: the sharp rise in Estonian inflation and the ongoing goods trade deficit.
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The Shape of Bulgarian Things to Come
As the IMF say in their most recent staff report on the country, the aftermath of the recent severe economic crisis leaves us with the question as to whether potential output growth in Bulgaria in the years to come is going to be markedly lower than it was during the boom years. As the IMF point out, the current recession was preceded by an investment boom in construction, real estate and the associated financial sectors. Now that the boom (which was always unsustainable, Bulgaria’s current account deficit in 2007 hit almost 27% of GDP) is well and truly over in these sectors, the strong associated decline in investment could have large negative effects on output. Moreover, it will take considerable time before the excess labor and resources that are no longer needed in these sectors can be absorbed by other sectors, which suggests that the rate of unemployment may rise yet further and remain higher for some considerable time. Not a uniquely Bulgarian story, but none the less important for that.
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Latvia: The Demographic Price Of Procrastination
One of the things I think we can safely say about the impact of the current economic crisis is that the face of Macro Economic theory will never be the same again. Quite what the macro economics of the future will look like is too early to say, but what is clear enough is that the existing corpus has been tested and found wanting: it’s predictive capacity is very, very limited, and this is obviously a far from satisfactory situation. -
Croatia: On The Brink of What?
As Croatia enters the final stage of its EU membership talks, it is perhaps a fitting moment to review the other half of the picture, namely where the Croatian economy finds itself, and what the outlook might be for a continuing convergence with the requirements of Euro membership. Understandably, EU officials are fairly cautious about the likely shape and progress of the forthcoming talks (the Union has, after all got rather a lot on its plate at the moment), but Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor is decidedly more optimistic, since while she recognises that this last phase is likely to be “really difficult and demanding” she still believes that negotiations could be concluded by the end of the year, which would mean that membership in 2012 would become a possibility.
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The German Economy Is Essentially “Intact”
According to Bundesbank President Axel Weber, Germany’s economic recovery is “essentially intact”, and is now set to benefit from stronger demand in countries outside the euro region.
“I firmly believe that the recovery process that began in summer 2009 is essentially intact, and that it will continue despite the slower growth dynamic in the winter semester. An additional factor in this context is that the German labor market continues to be in extremely robust shape.”
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Too Soon to Cry “Victory” on Latvia
“Doom-mongers” – the Economist tells us – “are licking their wounds”. And why exactly are they licking their wounds? Well for two years now (apparently) they have been telling us that “the struggle to save the lat’s peg to the euro was bound to end in tears”. As you could imagine right in the very forefront of these so called doom-mongers is to be found yours very truly (and here), and of course Nobel Economist Paul Krugman (and here).
