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Tag Archives: euro area

Eurozone makes progress

      The eurozone is widely viewed as a failure, held together only for political reasons. This, it is said, has been proved by the financial crisis and the failure to manage the debt problems of governments in southern Europe. At least, that is the dominant view among the Anglo-Saxons; one searches far and…
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II Searching for Ways Out

Recognising the public demand for reform, governments began a search for alternative policy models and structures soon after the outbreak of the global financial crisis (GFC). This can be viewed at national, regional and international levels. 5. Improving National Policies: At the national level this has taken the form of supplementing inflation targeting with various…
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Fred Bergsten calls for monetary reform

Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute is the “enfant terrible” of US international monetary and economic debate. Fending off the passing years, it is a role he has played with great panache for the best part of half a century. Always at the centre of things, always provocative, frequently infuriating, he has, as head of the…
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The “G20/IMF Communique”

  Nearly six years after the outbreak of the worst financial crisis in history, prospects for a full economic recovery remain elusive. Unemployment remains at very high levels, and standards of living for many people in developed countries are likely to fall over the first two decades of this century. Meanwhile, emerging markets remain vulnerable…
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A North Atlantic trade and currency zone?

David Cameron’s speech threatening to pull the UK out of the EU unless the other members agree to its demands may have started a process of withdrawal that could become irreversible. Although this outcome would be contrary to the stated objectives of the UK prime minister and British government, commentators on both sides of the…
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My New Year wishes

  The world economic recovery remains fragile and could easily be derailed by renewed financial turmoil. My first wish is a terminological one – please, can we find a more useful word or phrase to describe what has happened? The word “crisis” and the phrases “financial crisis” , “great financial crisis”, “Global Financial Crisis” ,…
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Why Asia fears new currency war

    The territory will be different – the sides will measure their gains and losses in terms of fractions of  an exchange rate movement rather than yards of muddy land in Flanders. But the implications could be far-reaching. Nothing less than the future shape and health of the world economy is at stake. The…
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Eurozone to lead world out of the money trap?

  There is a long, long way to go. But confidence is gradually returning to the eurozone – confidence that at least a break-up of the eurozone will be avoided (thought his does not exclude the possibility that Greece may leave). The fall in spreads on Spanish and Italian bonds over German bunds is one…
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Tectonic plates shift

There is a short and a long-term way to view the debate on structural reforms in banking. Short term, the question is, will the EU’s Liikanen knock out the UK’s Vickers? Or will Vickers prevail? The recommendations are mirror images of each other, one ring-fencing so-called retail banking the other ring-fencing the investment banking bit….
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Volcker, Lagarde, Rees-Mogg and the Ikon

Lord Rees-Mogg, former editor of The Times, London and doyen of British commentators, has called for a reform of the global financial system (GFS). Rees-Mogg quotes Paul Volcker, who in a recent interview described the present period as one of the most difficult in history: “This is a recession on top of a complete financial…
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