Political Economy

It is also worth stressing that this solution is far from perfect. We do not live in an ideal world. It is only one possible way of breaking the vicious circle into which the Euro Area countries have now fallen. It is one possible way, and…

The bottom line is this: many in Northern Europe see this crisis as the result of the fiscal profligacy of bad actors which were known before the Euro’s existence to be bad actors. All of these countries except Spain have been running huge…

The point is EMU is a political construct and unworkable in its present state. The question is whether the Europeans want to take the political steps like Eurobonds or fiscal integration that are necessary to support a stable currency…

Last month I wrote an article called “The ECB is the difference” which claimed the ECB was the pivotal institution in the European sovereign debt crisis. I presented two options that the European Central Bank had in relieving pressure on…

This article explains why quantitative easing had become the monetary tool of choice for the Federal Reserve and what kind of easing the Fed is now employing. Because the Fed feels constrained politically, it is unlikely to repeat…

Can Russia get the best of both worlds by freeing its economy from technologically unnecessary charges and rentier tolls paid to special interests? Such expenditures prevent the economy from developing. That is the basic cause of poverty –…

The neoliberal idea is to dismantle the government’s ability to regulate markets to steer growth and economic advance in the national interest. They claim that this is an alternative to centralized planning. But the reality is that it…

Investors are anticipating the unravelling of the 21 July 2011 “solution” and a breakdown of the interbank-market that would throw the economy into an “immediate recession” like the one experienced after the Lehman bankruptcy. This column…

Written and video statements explaining Minnesota Fed President Kocherlakota's dissent on 9 August 2011

In America everyone has been bellyaching about the S&P ratings downgrade like its an affront to the greatness of America. This is absolute rubbish. It’s pure denial and economic nationalism. Do you think the Germans would threaten to…