sectoral balances

The first thing that jumps out at me is the interview with Marco Buti, who says point blank that austerity must end as it is "pointless". That's huge because he is Olli Rehn's right hand man. And Rehn has just confirmed that the EC is…

The reality of course, is that euro zone governments do have to worry about losing market favour. They cannot rely on the central bank as a debt buyer of last resort the way the Japanese, the British or the Americans can. If, for whatever…

I was on the Daily Ticker with Lauren Lyster talking about Japan yesterday. My view is that there is no material negative change in Japan's sovereign debt outlook nor will there be in the medium term because of Abenomics. The video is at…

Latvia went through a housing bubble and bust that was just as severe as Spain, Ireland, the UK, and the US. The policy response in Latvia was austerity. But was it a success? It depends on who you ask.

Last year, I was bullish on European shares and this proved the right call as they modestly outperformed. As this year begins, I am doing a lot of thinking about my much-delayed "Ten Surprises for 2011" post. And as I compile list items,…

Raghuram Rajan has an interesting post now up on Project Syndicate. The overall tone of it has an Austrian feel as it stresses the failure of stimulus to allow developed economies to attain higher GDP growth a full five years after a…

Last October, I highlighted the issue of bailout extensions to Ireland and Portugal and so I want to re-visit this theme now that Portugal and Ireland are in the news looking to change the terms of their existing bailouts.

Let's talk about deficits for a second. The term deficit has some pretty serious negative connotations. So when we use that word, usually the implication is that the deficit is bad. Here's the thing though; as I have written here a number…

Greetings to you all on Christmas Eve. I think the big deal today is not America or Europe, but Japan. The incoming Japanese Prime Minister is threatening to strip the Bank of Japan, the central bank, of its independence. What Mr. Abe said…

As you may know, I now use the sectoral balances approach very heavily in looking at economic forecasting. The crux of the sectoral balances is that, from an accounting perspective, every sector's deficit must be offset by an equal surplus…