On July 7, three prominent Washington think tanks — the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution and the Peterson Institute for International Economics — organized a big conference on Challenges and Impact of Governance in Ukraine. It was held at the Peterson Institute in Washington. This conference attracted no fewer than 300 participants, including 50 representatives … Read more
“The market is pricing these sovereigns at much wider levels than where their agency ratings would imply,” said Diana Allmendinger, a director at Fitch Solutions.CDS on Italy imply a rating of BBB, five notches below its agency rating of AA-minus. And Spain’s implied rating is BB-plus, nine notches below its agency rating of AA-plus. With … Read more
Sometimes the United States is slow to join a global trend. Fiscal policy rules are a case in point. Economists love the idea of rules that decouple tax and spending policies from short-term politics and focus instead on long-term growth and sustainability. Such rules used to be rare; as recently as 1990, they were in … Read more
There is a need for more transparency on the part of the BNDES (Brazilian National Development Bank) and a better assessment of the costs and benefits of subsidized loans. The BNDES’s preposterous involvement in the corporate dispute between French multinationals over the Pão-de-Açúcar supermarket chain shows that the state-owned bank has strayed far from its … Read more
CNBC –’Perfect Storm’ Coming for Global Economy in 2013: Roubini Also Read: Roubini: 2013 Global Perfect Storm May Surpass 2008 Crisis
I don’t really read all that many Turkey reports; I skim quite a few, but there are only a few guys I read regularly, with one of those being Yapi Kredi, or YKB, Research. I was surprised, although I am not sure pleasantly or not, to find that I have been quoted by them in … Read more
When people look back at the history of the 21st century, the hum-drum attention paid by the U.S. media to the “drone war” over Pakistan may be viewed as something of an inflection point. America, somewhat past its height in terms of relative omnipotence, nonetheless retained its lead in automated forms of combat. The guided … Read more
… as I had predicted in Monday’s, Hurriyet Daily News column, which also appeared at the blog. I am expecting someone to say, “you are very good“ Joking aside, I am not that good:)- it was pretty clear that the CBT would prefer decreasing FX auctions, or eliminating them altogether, before countering the lira weakness … Read more
What follows is simply a follow-up note to my earlier (Elephant in The Euro Room) piece on Italy. The decision by S&P to put Italian sovereign debt on negative outlook, and the subsequent announcement by Moody’s that it was considering a downgrade has been widely commented on by analysts, and it might be interesting to … Read more
It was obvious to those who understand Modern Money Theory that the set-up of the European Monetary Union was fatally flawed. We knew that the first serious financial and economic crisis would threaten its very existence. In a sense, it was from the beginning much like the US in 1929, on the eve of the … Read more