election

The Bank of England kept its key policy rate unchanged at a record low 0.25% . Three dissents show how a weak currency and rising inflation are making it harder to keep rates low. The worst case scenario is an inflationary recession, which…

I have been hearing a lot of pundits talk about how the UK election changes the outlook for Brexit. And a lot of this stuff is misguided because the election doesn’t change the outlook in any discernible way. Here’s why.

While the economy in the UK was favourable for Corbyn last week, I don’t think the economics support populism elsewhere in Europe right now. Everywhere you look, the populists are in retreat in Europe. And that will give the EU breathing…

There are several threads I want to comment on in the wake of the UK general election. And from an economic standpoint, the conclusion that follows is that austerity in the UK has now lost its appeal politically. It also means lower yields…

The Eurozone economy is doing really well. Some data points to 3% growth. The German economy is doing even better – with some data pointing to 5% annualized growth. But there’s a downside – overheating. And with the ECB at negative rates…

Germany held elections in Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) this past weekend. And the results, while encouraging for Angela Merkel’s CDU, point to difficulties that lie ahead for French President Emmanuel Macron’s reform agenda in Europe. This is…

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble talked to German weekly Der Spiegel about the election of Emmanuel Macron as French President, and this interview is being widely quoted in the English-language press without benefit of a…

I just finished reading an illuminating article by Andrew Ross Sorkin on healthcare and it got me to thinking about a review of structural reforms by Dani Rodrik which encapsulates the problem with fixes to ‘competitiveness’. The message:…

At the height of the European Sovereign Debt Crisis, German leader Angela Merkel was openly calling for ‘more Europe, not less’. With Emmanuel Macron elected to the Presidency of France on that platform, Merkel has perhaps her only chance…

At the weekend, French Presidential election frontrunner Emmanuel Macron told the BBC that EU leaders “have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the…