Political Economy

The Germans are saying, “we want the euro and we want to be good European partners, but not on any terms. We will not be in a union that fosters ever-increasing levels of government debt.”

In my last post on what the US midterm elections mean, I wrote that the election was a referendum on the President’s leadership and that he had failed that referendum. It is not the President’s policies per se that have caused voter…

The US mid-term elections have just ended as a major victory for the Republican Party. And while I don’t do politics, being in DC affords me a front row seat to what’s going on. Below is my take on what happened, why and what it means for…

The Germans got into the eurozone out of a desire to increase European integration and to strengthen Europe as an economic area that rivalled the United States. Yet, now we are in a period where the Germans are being blamed for everything…

What southern Europe needs is a revolution in the mindset and more “better quality” stuff, and no amount of blaming Germany for the situation can get over that. The extractive networks who hold back growth need reforming out of existence.…

By Edward Hugh By now it should be clear that the monetary experiment currently being carried out in Japan (known as “Abenomics”) is fundamentally different from the kind of quantitative easing which was implemented in the United States…

Britain faces a crisis of monumental proportions as the Scottish electorate decides whether to leave the Union and make Scotland a fully independent country for the first time since 1707 when it first entered into political union with…

There is now a provisional date for that woeful collision to occur: the 9 November this year, the date chosen by the Catalan parliament for the holding a popular (non binding, not a referendum) consultation under a new law which will…

By Edward Hugh There has been lot’s of debate in the press and in academic circles over the last week or so about whether Italy’s latest contraction constitutes a triple dip recession or simply a continuation of what’s been going on over…

Japan needs deep seated cultural changes, especially ones directed to greater female empowerment and more openness towards immigration. Japan needs a series of structural reforms – like those under discussion around the third arrow – but…