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What was Spain supposed to have done?

In January 2004, I attended a property conference in Switzerland, to give a talk on the European economy. I talked about the end of European catch-up on US productivity levels. But the most interesting...

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Banking reforms after the Libor scandal

On June 14 2012, I wrote a column [Two cheers for Britain’s bank reform plans] on the government’s plans to implement the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking, chaired by Sir John...

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Putting the crisis-hit eurozone in context

The chart below comes from the Conference Board’s wonderful “total economy database”. It uses GDP per head, at PPP, in 2011$s (computed according to the Eltoto, Kovacs and Szulc method). Continue...

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Debt, deleveraging and crisis in the US

My column this week We still have that sinking feeling examined the progress of post-crisis deleveraging, focusing on the US. I would like to elaborate on this issue.  The chart attached to the column...

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The balance sheet recession in the US

I look at this through the lens of “sectoral financial balances”, an analytical framework learned from the work of the late Wynne Godley. The essential idea is that since income has to equal...

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Fallacies about work and the crisis

Economic crises bring forth a great deal of nonsense. One of the most frequent bits of such nonsense is the idea that the countries in crisis in the eurozone are full of idle people, while the...

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Getting out of debt by adding debt

The role of fiscal deficits in deleveraging “You can’t get out of debt by adding more debt.” How often have you read this sentence? It is a cliché. I am going to argue that, to a first approximation,...

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Objections to providing fiscal support for deleveraging

Needless to say, arguments can be made against this point of view and alternative policies considered.  But, before considering those arguments and alternatives, it is crucial to stress one point: no...

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Ways to accelerate private-sector deleveraging

I have argued in previous posts that the policy of letting the government deficits offset the natural post-crisis austerity of the private sector makes excellent sense, provided the country in question...

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Martin Wolf’s Exchange hiatus

Martin is on book leave until OctoberContinue reading »

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You can’t measure an economy’s performance on recovery alone

I entered into a heated US debate last week on whether the recovery has been surprisingly slow and, if so, whether the policies of Barack Obama’s administration bear responsibility for that outcome. In...

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Radical paths to rebalance the UK economy

What is to be done? This question has to be asked of UK economic policy. Only the complacent can be satisfied with what is happening. Yes, the 1 per cent increase in third-quarter gross domestic...

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Martin Wolf’s Exchange hiatus 2

Martin is on book leave until JanuaryContinue reading »

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An outbreak of frugality across the eurozone

My column this week was on Germany’s attempt to export the German model throughout the eurozone. Here is some additional information on what has been happening. The story is quite remarkable for the...

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Europe’s beggar-my-neighbour policy

I recently looked at what happened to private financial balances inside the eurozone. Today’s post looks at what happened to the current account deficits. It fills out the broad story of the eurozone’s...

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A response to Roger Altman

Roger Altman of Evercore partners is a friend of mine, a distinguished public servant and a respected financial expert. But his column “Blame bond markets, not politicians, for austerity” is, in my...

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Debt dynamics in the eurozone

A commenter, A.N., objects to my argument that the big reason for the explosion in government bond yields in Spain was not its debt dynamics, which are remarkably like the UK’s, but because it does not...

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Why the world faces climate chaos

Last week the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was reported to have passed 400 parts per million for the first time in 4.5m years. It is also continuing to rise at a rate of about 2...

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Why the UK should not sell its student loan book

The UK Treasury is, it is reported, considering the sale of parts of its student loan book. This provokes a big question: when should the UK government sell such an asset – given that it is both...

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Global inaction shows that the climate sceptics have already won

Humanity has decided to yawn and let the real and present dangers of climate change mount. That was the argument I made in last week’s column. Nothing in the responses to it undermined that conclusion....

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