Trade

Germany must ensure liquidity to deal with trade collapse

  “Corona crisis – liquidity takes priority” By Prof. Dr. Michael Grömling, Dr. Martin Beznoska, and Dr. Markus Demary, courtesy of IW Koeln   In China it became apparent how an epidemic can directly affect the production potential of an economy when large numbers of workers have to be quarantined. Through a variety of intermediate […]

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Reject a government takeover of consumer lending

  By Phil Kerpen, courtesy of American Commitment   Price controls don’t work, cause shortages, and have precipitated economic disaster in every sector and jurisdiction that has attempted to impose them on any significant scale.  But their braindead simplicity – something is too expensive, so we’ll mandate that it be cheaper – makes them forever […]

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What’s behind euro-area housing boom… and is a crash coming?

  “Recent euro-area house price increases are dissimilar to earlier housing booms” By Zsolt Darvas, Marta Domínguez-Jiménez, and Guntram B. Wolf, courtesy of the Bruegel Institute   Rapid house price increases are good for homeowners and bad for people wishing to buy. They could also be bad for the economy as a whole if there […]

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In favor of climate-based stress tests for banks

  “Climate risks to European banks: a new era of stress tests” By Alexander Lehmann, courtesy of the Bruegel Institute   The release of a proposed methodology for assessing climate risks within UK banks and insurers by the Bank of England just before Christmas has fueled calls for a similar ‘climate stress test’ for European […]

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Don’t loosen bank rules for Green New Deal

  “European green finance is expanding, a discount on bank capital would discredit it” By Alexander Lehmann, courtesy of the Bruegel Institute   The Commission’s ‘European Green Deal’ sets out massive investment needs in a variety of areas, amounting to potentially 1.5 per cent of the EU’s annual GDP. If these targets are to be […]

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New finance rules: Too much information?

  “MiFID II: Too much consumer protection?” By Benedikt Schmal and Alexander Fink, translation by Anna-Maria Köhnke; Courtesy of IREF   The recently updated European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, commonly abbreviated as MiFID II, is supposed to enhance consumers’ protection. Adjustments of regulatory background questions aside, the EU aims to improve “protection of investors by prohibiting the […]