Over the Cliff We Go
DeLong, Brandford. Unless something unexpected happens, the United States’ many legislated reductions in taxes over the past 12 years – all of which have been explicitly temporary – will expire simultaneously at the start of 2013. American tax rates will revert overnight to their Clinton-era levels. Πηγή: Project Syndicate πλήρες κείμενο
Farewell to Inflation Targeting?
El-Erian, Mohamed. In a four-day period in mid-December, three seemingly unrelated developments suggested that modern central banking is in the midst of an historic change. The implications go well beyond academia and policy circles. To the extent that this shift gains momentum – which appears likely – it will affect economic performance, the functioning of […]
Why is the Greek economy collapsing? A simple tale of high multipliers and low exports
Alcidi, Cinzia Gros, Daniel. In an attempt to understand why the Greek economy is collapsing, this Commentary points out two key aspects that are often overlooked – the country’s large multiplier and a bad export performance. When combined with the need for a large fiscal adjustment, these factors help explain how fiscal consolidation in Greece has […]
Steps but no roadmap towards GEMU – the results of a disappointing summit – Post-Summit Analysis
Emmanouilidis, Janis. The 13-14 December European Council was disappointing as it failed to live up to the expectations raised and the objectives set earlier in the year. EU leaders were not able to agree on a long-term and ambitious roadmap towards the completion of EMU. The EU 27 rather gave the impression that they could take […]
Gross inflows and the incidence of credit booms
Calderón, César, Kubota, Megumi. How can we predict bad credit booms? This column argues that surges in gross private inflows are good predictors of booms in credit markets, especially those booms that end up in a systemic banking crisis. Using quarterly data on gross capital inflows and real credit, gross private inflows remain a useful […]
The hysterical economy
Kotlikoff, Laurence. A ‘self-fulfilling recession’ is a long-established idea in economics. This column argues that the US’s economic malaise continues to be caused by leaders’ hysteria rather than by actual engrained economic problems. Obama and Congress need to stop scaring the nation about the ‘fiscal cliff’ because, ultimately, they are coordinating expectations on there being […]
Νίκος Κουτσιαράς: Εθνικές τράπεζες, ενιαία τραπεζική εποπτεία και η νέα ΕΚΤ
Η μεταρρύθμιση του καθεστώτος της Ευρωπαϊκής νομισματικής ένωσης επιχειρείται, βεβαίως, με πολλούς εθνικούς δισταγμούς και επιφυλάξεις – συχνά αντανακλώμενες σε χρονικές μεταθέσεις των τελικών αποφάσεων, ιδίως προκειμένου για τα περισσότερο ευαίσθητα, για την εθνική δημοσιονομική αυτονομία και πολιτική ανεξαρτησία, ζητήματα. Οι μεταρρυθμιστικές πρωτοβουλίες και αποφάσεις έχουν, εξ ορισμού, μακροπρόθεσμο ορίζοντα, άλλοτε, όμως, ευθέως και άλλοτε […]
Monetary Policy and Banking Supervision: Coordination instead of separation
Beck, Thorsten, Gros, Daniel. Following the June 2012 European Council decision to place the ‘Single Supervisory Mechanism’ (SSM) within the European Central Bank, the general presumption in the policy discussions has been that there should be ‘Chinese walls’ between the supervisory and monetary policy arms of the ECB. The current legislative proposal, in fact, is […]
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 […]