March 20, 2015 | By Wolfango Piccoli via MacroPolis | The Greek government faces a dire financial situation in the coming weeks, especially as lenders are unlikely to relent on the conditions of last month’s loan extension.
SAO PAULO | February 24, 2015 | By Marcus Nunes via Historinhas | It took three years, but in late 2011 Poland finally botched up and went the way of the majority of countries, letting NGDP fall way below trend. They didn’t (correctly) react to the 2007-08 oil price rise, like the US, UK, EZ, etc. and fared well, but didn’t resist when oil prices picked up again in 2010-11, when, among the initial group, only the ECB was dumb enough to react.
By Barry Eichengreen via Caixin | The reform response to the financial crisis was mild compared to that of the Great Depression, but all is not lost.
MADRID | By JP Marín Arrese | Plummeting oil prices are sending shock waves to stock markets as investors fear the violent swing might cripple the global economic balance. Some exporting countries like Russia are crumbling while investments in industries face widespread disruption as they become out-priced. Even if importing countries are footing a downsized bill in the short run, volatility is never welcome.
By Miriam L. Campanella via Caixin | The supply of U.S. dollars in the global economy is set to shrink, and the yuan could fill the void if Chinese leaders and international monetary institutions are prepared to act
MADRID | By Francisco López | Spain is not an oasis inside the Eurozone. The 18 main private research services believe that the slowdown in the European economy is already taking its toll on Spain. Besides, they forecast that Spanish GDP will grow slower than expected in the last quarter of 2014 (0.4%) versus 0.5% of the third quarter or 0.6% of the second quarter.
SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes via Historinhas | In “What caused the great recession in the Eurozone? What could have avoided it?” Philippe Martin and Thomas Philippon begin thus: There is a wide disagreement about the nature and cause of the Eurozone crisis. Some see it as driven by fiscal indiscipline, some emphasise excessive private leverage, while others focus on external imbalances, sudden stops, or competitiveness divergence due to fixed exchange rates, as the following quotes illustrate.
SAO PAOLO | By Marcus Nunes via Historinhas | It comes from Martin Wolf´s “The Shifts and the Shocks” and is reviewed by Paul Krugman in the New York Review of Books. The following passage of his review nullifies the whole thing: In particular, Milton Friedman had convinced many economists that depression prevention is actually a fairly simple task, which can be carried out by technocrats at the central banks that control national money supplies. According to Friedman, the Great Depression occurred only because the Federal Reserve failed to do its job in the 1930s; if it had acted to rescue troubled banks and prevent a fall in the money supply, catastrophe would have been avoided.
ATHENS | Via Macropolis | A study published in the latest Bank of Greece (BoG) economic bulletin highlighted the deterioration in Greek households’ living and income conditions during the years of crisis (2008-2012).