current account

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.…

I am back from my summer holiday. There has been a lot of news in the time since I last posted. And the news flow is coming from a lot of different places. So, let me start up again with a post highlighting what I think are some of the key…

After a promising first decade, the Eurozone faced a severe crisis. This column looks at the Eurozone’s short history through the lens of an evolutionary approach to forming new institutions. German dominance has allowed the euro to achieve…

The title here is a bit provocative I know. But it is really something I stole from an article about Stephen Roach’s view that I will use as a jumping off point for my Friday review.

This is a loaded topic. This entry, however, is not intended to be political. Very few things in economics are good or bad in themselves, but rather can be good under certain conditions or bad under others. I want to try to tease out as…

Remember that the rest of the world has so far accepted the experiment that is Abenomics not only because Japan has been running a current account deficit (thus making it more reasonable for Japan to weaken its currency), but also because…

Here are some brief thoughts on the monetary system’s role in repeated economic crisis in the last 40 years.

The Federal Reserve’s ‘taper talk’ in spring 2013 has been blamed for outflows of capital from emerging markets. This column argues that global growth prospects and uncertainty are more important drivers of emerging-market capital flows…

Russian Economy Minister Ulyukayev proposed a possible delay to the ruble free float from the current 2015 target. Remarks are noteworthy, as most officials have consistently said the float would come in 2015. He added that the ruble float…

Over the past few decades there has been a great deal of focus on the large trade imbalance between the US and Asia - first with Japan and more recently with China. While that is still an issue, we may be facing a new imbalance that is…