Many observers continue to tout Italian risks as the greatest in the euro area into the year end. The constitutional referendum that would emasculate the Senate, and end the perfect bicameralism that has contributed to...
Remember TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program that the US Congress approved to bail out banks and other companies during the Financial Crisis? $700 billion were authorized, later reduced to $475 billion. The Treasury eventually...
Helicopter money is the rage. Central banks are talking about it. Economists are debating it. The media is rife with coverage. While it sounds important, it is not precisely clear what helicopter money means. It...
For at least a couple of years before the Great Financial Crisis, policymakers often cautioned that investors were mispricing risk. Through the crisis, investors became painfully aware of many risks, including counterparty risk and reputation...
The European Central Bank is meant to be independent from politics. But it’s bending its own rules and mandate beyond recognition to buy incompetent politicians more time, says DW’s Rolf Wenkel. There’s no doubt about...
The European Central Bank has said it will spend upwards of 1 trillion euros on a bond-buying spree to shore up the eurozone economy. It cited the specter of deflation and slack in the euro...
There is a common misconception that the euro area is a monetary union without a political union. But this reflects a deep misunderstanding of what monetary union means. Monetary union is possible only because of...
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi says the ECB could take targeted steps to get credit flowing to struggling small businesses as a way to boost Europe’s tepid economic recovery. Draghi said at a conference...
The major economies are recovering, but their debt burden remains substantial. The regulatory regime for banks has tightened. Many economists, including Rogoff and Reinhart, in a paper at the end of last year, warned that...
The biggest lender in debt-stricken Greece, the National Bank NGB, has announced that it raised the necessary amount of private capital to avoid nationalization. It secured even more money than required by law. The National...
Sell in May and go away? What about “risk off?” And ever more QE? Today’s letter is a quick note and a reprise of a popular letter from yesteryear (with a bit of new slant),...
In March, six years after inception, the first ECB-organized Eurozone-wide household-wealth survey results were trickling out. But when the Bundesbank refused to publish the German data, insiders leaked the reason: too explosive for the current...
