The Euroless Union?
Eichengreen, Barry. Europe’s crisis has entered a quiet phase, which is no accident. The current period of relative calm coincides with the approach of Germany’s federal election in 2013, in which the incumbent chancellor, Angela Merkel, will be running as the woman who saved the euro. Πηγή: Project Syndicate πλήρες κείμενο
The multilateral approach to capital controls
Blanchard, Olivier, D Ostry, Jonathan. The IMF recently endorsed capital controls as useful policy responses to certain circumstances. This column explains the logic and the research that underpins the shift. Πηγή: Voxeu πλήρες κείμενο
Fiscal Multipliers and the State of the Economy
Baum, Anja, Poplawski-Ribeiro, Marcos & Weber, Anke. Only a few empirical studies have analyzed the relationship between fiscal multipliers and the underlying state of the economy. This paper investigates this link on a country-by-country basis for the G7 economies (excluding Italy). Our results show that fiscal multipliers differ across countries, calling for a tailored use […]
The Quiet Coup
Johnson, Simon. The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many […]
Should Europe Emulate the US?
Pisani-Ferry. Jean. Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist and blogger, recently summarized diverging transatlantic trends as follows: “Better here, worse there.” It is a shocking observation: as recently as in 2009, European politicians and commentators lambasted the US for being at the root of the financial turmoil and hailed the euro for protecting the continent […]
How to deal with macroeconomic imbalances?
Gros, Daniel. It is plainly apparent that now is the time to make adjustments to the severe macroeconomic imbalances created by the sudden stop in capital flows to the countries in the southern periphery of the eurozone. But crucial questions arise about how to correct the imbalances, how to share the burden of the adjustment […]
Macroeconomic adjustment and the history of crises in open economies
Aizenman, Joshua, Noy, Ilan. Are countries that have previously experienced banking crises less vulnerable to them in the future? This column argues that, in fact, previous crises might make future crises more likely. There isn’t much evidence of a learning process from past mistakes because the regulator often lags behind banking’s pace of innovation. Preparing to […]
Did the Indian capital controls work as a tool of macroeconomic policy?
Ila Patnaik, Ajay Shah. Can we agree that capital controls are an effective tool for macroeconomic policy? If so, should they be permanent or temporary? This column argues that under a permanent system of capital controls, a country will always bear costs whether there is a surge or capital flight or not. Looking at the […]
On the Manipulation of Currencies
Mitt Romney is promising to declare China a currency manipulator on “day one” of his new administration. Why? Ostensibly, because Mr. Romney, like so many others, believes that the Chinese are somehow interfering with the foreign-exchange markets and holding the exchange rate of their currency (confusingly called both the yuan and the remnibi) below its […]
America’s Third-World Politics
Rodrik, Dani. With its presidential election over, the United States can finally take a breather from campaign politics, at least for a while. But an uncomfortable question lingers: How is it possible for the world’s most powerful country and its oldest continuous democracy to exhibit a state of political discourse that is more reminiscent of […]