“Germany Remains Firmly Opposed to Banking Union” By Gordon Kerr, Cavin O’Driscoll and Enrico Colombatto, courtesy of IREF In November, Germany’s Finance Minister Olaf Scholz wrote an article in the Financial Times claiming that he had devised a common European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS)[1] that could be acceptable to both sides of the hitherto […]
Tag: ECB
Breaking the “black zero”: Germany has room to spend more
“How much space for fiscal expansion? Germany falls victim to ‘output gap nonsense’” By Philipp Heimberger, courtesy of WIIW The German economy is in a downturn. The growth rate is currently among the lowest in the euro area, and numerous economic research institutes have revised their forecasts downwards. German industry is already in recession. In […]
Bank of England tackles climate change with protective mountain of paper
“Central Banks’ Varied Approaches to the Financial Risks of Climate Change” By Gordon Kerr, Cavin O’Driscoll, and Enrico Colombatto, courtesy of IREF As the momentum has built behind calls for policy responses towards climate change, the ECB and the Bank of England have not been the quickest central banks to act. Back in […]
WEEKLY UPDATE: City air makes men free… so why not make new cities?
After all, we’ve been doing it for thousands of years It would be hard to list all the advantages that cities afford us, but the short version goes like this: urban centers concentrate labor, talent, wealth and innovation in a matrix that allows all of them to multiply and advance. Since ancient […]
Welfare spending makes wealth inequality worse
“Welfare State Causes Wealth Inequality — Euro Experience” By Chris Edwards, courtesy of Cato Institute Democrats running for president are condemning wealth inequality while calling for an increase in social spending. But expanding social spending would magnify wealth inequality, not reduce it, because it would displace […]
ECB stimulus is on collision course with German constitution
“The euro and the German constitution” By Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, courtesy of GIS (Ed: revisiting in light of the fresh legal challenge in Germany to ECB bond-buying, filed October 8). Two legal challenges to the EU central bank’s most controversial policies have […]
EU needs banking overhaul
With the EU’s leadership in transition, there are a lot of ideas for the new powers that be to sort through (or ignore, as they case may be) when it comes to reforming the continent’s financial infrastructure. There are also mixed verdicts on central […]
Central banks need to tell everyone to suck it up
While monetary policy has an important role to play in combating economic downturns, central banks have assumed an outsized importance at the expense of other policy options, writes Dr. Michael Ivanovitch in a commentary for CNBC, arguing that central bankers need to […]
Is ECB stimulus too late?
While monetary “hawks” tend to reject any further monetary easing from the European Central Bank like the plague, doveish types are afraid that the ECB’s latest round of easing didn’t go far enough, and may have come too late anyway. The doves’ point […]
ECB expansion policy at odds with German perceptions
According to the DIW the ECB’s return to expansionary policy is both correct and likely to contrast significantly with the German public’s perceptions, which skew financially conservative. Might this be a new source of tension between Germany and the EU?