The ending week’s best articles picked from my blog posts. Last
week’s ‘Best of’ here.
Previously on
MoreLiver’s:
EUROPE
When Can We All Admit the Euro is an Economic Failure?
– Tim
Duy’s Fed Watch
How high does unemployment need to rise, how much output
needs to be lost, how much poverty must be endured before European policymakers
realize that the policymakers see that the framework supporting the Euro
politcally is an economic failure?
Europe in Brief – Krugman /
NYT
Tim Duy asks, when can we all admit that the euro is a
failure? The answer, of course, is never. Too much history, too many
declarations, too much ego is invested in the single currency for those
involved ever to admit that maybe they made a mistake
Our view: Exiting the euro is a debate we must have
– Cyprus
Mail
Protecting the eurozone at all costs is undermining
IMF’s validity – The
Telegraph
Of all the international organisations to have emerged from
the ruins of the WWII, the IMF, which holds its spring meeting this week, can
reasonably claim to be one of the more successful.
ECONOMY
Rising deflation risks in the Eurozone – Research
Ahead
German ghost of inflations past haunting European
stability: Posen – MacroScope
/ Reuters
What did the former UK Monetary Policy Committee member
mean? Quite simply, that the types of structural economic changes that Germany
has been pushing on the euro zone are not only destructive but also bound to
fail, at least if history is any guide.
Is the academic premise for austerity in the eurozone
crumbling? Not quite – Open
Europe
So what academics (and policymakers) really should debate is
whether fiscal transfers are possible and/or desirable. Proving or disproving R&R is neither here
nor there when it comes to dealing with the eurozone crisis.
Why is this global recovery different? – voxeu.org
The Great Recession has been followed by a ‘Not-So-Great
Recovery’. Why the recovery has been weak and protracted remains a matter of
debate. This column argues that one specific aspect of the current global
recovery makes it different from previous ones. Over the course of past
recoveries, both monetary and fiscal policies maintained an accommodative
stance. In this global recovery, fiscal and monetary policies in advanced
economies are pushing in opposite directions.
BANKING
Schaeuble Favors ‘Liability Hierachy’ for European
Bank Bailouts – BB
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said he wants to
see a “liability hierarchy” where owners and creditors of banks are first in
line to bail them out before governments bolster equity and the European
Stability Mechanism provides international aid.
EU banking union
'could need treaty change' – The
Telegraph
Germany's
finance minister has claimed that a banking union could require changes to EU
law, potentially putting the brakes on a plan designed to prop up the euro.
Has Germany really
gone off the idea of EU treaty change? (Part II) – Open
Europe
PIIGS
The non-puzzle of peripheral pain – Free
exchange / The Economist
And so the euro area might just choose to lock up bits of
euros here and there and selectively reduce their value. That is what happened
to many of the euros locked up in loans to the Greek government. And it is what
happened to many of the euros that were sitting in insured deposits in Cypriot
banks. Who knows where it might happen next! (Nowhere, say euro-area officials,
entirely unconvincingly.) The rub is that doing something like that on the
scale necessary to end the crisis probably, basically, more-or-less means the
end of the euro area.
More on peripheral pain – Free
exchange / The Economist
…the main reason the single currency is at risk is that the
core, and the ECB, are subjecting the union to patterns of nominal growth it
simply can't be expected to endure.
ECB
How can the ECB fight fragmentation of the eurozone?
– Gavyn
Davies / FT
Speech Draghi: Hearing before the Plenary of the
European Parliament – ECB
Deposit guarantees and burden-sharing, quote du jour
– alphaville
/ FT
ASIA
Japan's Full
Frontal: Charting Abenomics So Far – ZH
Inflation in Japan: mission
(partially) accomplished – alphaville
/ FT
OTHER
Posen: ‘Central bankers can’t spot bubbles, ok?’
– alphaville
/ FT
New financial
forecasts – Nordea
FX Forecast Update April – Danske
Bank (pdf)
Except for the yen we have made very few major changes to
our FX Forecasts compared to our previous forecast. We stick to our overall
view that the euro will gain against USD, JPY and GBP over the next three
months.
Did the Gold Standard Work? Economics Before and
After Fiat Money – CFA
Institute
34 pages of pure market talk.
Special: IMF Outlook
& Kenneth-Rogoff – MoreLiver’s
IMF published the latest World Economic Outlook and the real
surprise is the blunt advice to Europe: massive monetary
easing and fiscal union are needed. Kenneth & Rogoff’s seminal paper on
countries’ debt levels and how growth slows after debt/GDP passes 90% is being
attacked. This is very, very important, as the paper has been the main argument
of the “austerians”.
FINNISH
Eläkkeet, kestävyysvaje ja Himanen – miksi kukaan
ei näe norsua huoneessa?
– Tyhmyri
Miksi hylätä oikea politiikka? – Henri
Myllyniemi / US Puheenvuoro
Jos kerran
eurokraatit ovat niin vuorenvarmoja olleet talouskurin olevan pahalta maistuva,
mutta taatusti tehoava lääke, niin eikö siitä lipsuminen ole väärää politiikkaa?
Näin Suomen kriisitaakka kasvaa
taas vaivihkaa – Jan
Hurri / TalSa
Euromaat ovat
taas sopineet kriisitoimien tuntuvasta kasvattamisesta tavalla, joka maksaa
miljardeja mutta jonka kustannuksia ei ole tarkoitus oivaltaa. Samaan aikaan
kriisitoimien taakka siirtyy niin ikään vähin äänin yhä yksipuolisemmin
euromaiden kontolle. Suomi kuuluu vaivihkaisten kriisitoimien kustantajiin.
Kyproksen tukeminen osana
euroalueen talouskriisiä
– Eduskunta
Täysistunnon
pöytäkirja Välikysymys VK 3/2013 vp
IMF:n maailman rahoitusvakausraportti: vain
euroalueella tökkii – Henri
Myllyniemi / piksu
Euron kauhut paljastuvat liittymisestä sopineille
– Romania ei anna liittymiselle aikataulua – tyhmyri