Europe’s Economic Suicide
Krugman, Paul. On Saturday The Times reported on an apparently growing phenomenon in Europe: “suicide by economic crisis,” people taking their own lives in despair over unemployment and business failure. It was a heartbreaking story. But I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader, especially among economists, wondering if the larger story isn’t so much about […]
The ECB’s Lethal Inhibition
Eichengreen, Barry. Last December, with Europe’s financial system on the brink of disaster, the European Central Bank stunned the markets with an unprecedented intervention, offering banks across the eurozone essentially unlimited liquidity against any and all collateral for an exceptional period of three years. Πηγή: Project Syndicate πλήρες κείμενο
Reversing Europe’s Renationalization
Soros, George. Far from abating, the euro crisis has taken a turn for the worse in recent months. The European Central Bank managed to relieve an incipient credit crunch through its long-term refinancing operation (LTRO), which lent over a trillion euros to eurozone banks at one percent. This brought considerable relief to financial markets, and the […]
The Big Easing
Gros, Daniel. More than three years after the financial crisis that erupted in 2008, who is doing more to bring about economic recovery, Europe or the United States? The US Federal Reserve has completed two rounds of so-called “quantitative easing,” whereas the European Central Bank has fired two shots from its big gun, the so-called […]
The EZ breakup contest: Take ignorance seriously
Baldwin, Richard. The five finalists of the £250,000 EZ breakup contest were announced last week; only one has a graduate degree in economics. This column argues that three are amateurish efforts full of economic and factual errors. European economists should take such ignorance seriously. Failure to do so in the US allowed odious ideas to […]
Fiscal devaluation as a cure for Eurozone ills – Could it work?
De Mooij, Ruud, Keen, Michael. Troubled Eurozone countries face the difficult challenge of regaining competitiveness without devaluing their currency. Could a fiscal devaluation, shifting taxes from employers to consumers, help? This column presents evidence suggesting that it could, but the devil is in the detail. Πηγή: Voxeu πλήρες κείμενο
Greece Has Too Many Farmers
Dalton, Matthew. Southern Europe has a productivity problem. Workers in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy all produce below the euro-zone average per hour worked; the difference is particularly stark for Greece and Portugal, two of the countries getting loans from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund. Πηγή: The Wall Street Journal πλήρες κείμενο
A Centerless Euro Cannot Hold
Rogoff, Kenneth. With youth unemployment touching 50% in eurozone countries such as Spain and Greece, is a generation being sacrificed for the sake of a single currency that encompasses too diverse a group of countries to be sustainable? If so, does enlarging the euro’s membership really serve Europe’s apparent goal of maximizing economic integration without […]
Sudden stops in the Eurozone
Merler, Silvia, Pisani-Ferry, Jean. Many analysts and observers have put forward that the euro crisis is a balance-of-payments crisis at least as much as a fiscal crisis. This column provides evidence of capital-flow reversals in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. It argues that the fostering of a pan-European banking industry and the creation of a […]
The problems of European monetary union – asymmetric shocks or asymmetric behaviour?
Boltho, Andrea, Carlin, Wendy. Divergent behaviour from Eurozone countries that have very different economic, social, and political structures is threatening the existence of the single currency. This column argues that the Eurozone is a fragile bureaucratic creation that has hardly ever raised much popular enthusiasm anywhere. If behaviour across the area remains as asymmetric as […]