Greece Needs a Deep Debt Write Off
1.Debt restructuring options for Greece It is generally agreed that public debt continues to pose a major problem for Greece. The IMF expects debt to decline to 124% of GDP by 2020, while annual rates of growth are projected at a little less than 3%. To achieve this target Greece has been forced to adopt ... Read more
Portugal and Greece: The Odd Return to Markets
In the past few weeks, Portugal and Greece have returned to the markets in moves seen in Brussels as heralding a rebound in Southern Europe. In reality, a fragile recovery has barely begun and will take years. On Sunday (4 May), Portugal’s Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho announced that his government will not seek a ... Read more
Overt Money Financing and Public Debt
Purpose and Concepts The purposes of this brief note are two-fold: first, to establish, by country, the extent to which public sector borrowing contributed to the rise in public debt over the period since 2008; and, second, to draw some policy inferences. The two indicative fiscal parameters used in this analysis are: Borrowing = general ... Read more
Unfounded Obsession With the Greek Minimum Wage
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, ... Read more