US Economist Arnold Harberger once asked what Thailand, the Dominican Republic, Zimbabwe, Greece, and Bolivia had in common that merited their being placed in the same growth regression analysis. I can’t help having the same feeling about Germany, France, Italy and Spain. As I indicated in a post on A Few Euros More yesterday, [...]

I think I’d better rephrase that: more overall growth, but a very mixed bag. In deriving aggregate numbers for the zone, four big economies really matter: Spain, France, Germany and Italy. Now each of these economies actually has different characteristics, so it is not clear what ‘the general picture’ means here.
Spain is the European economy [...]

Greece and Albania are having a small diplomatic tiff. If reading about that sort of thing interests you, read on.
So: two weeks ago, Greek President Karolos Papoulias’ was scheduled to meet with Albanian President Alfred Moisiu, in the southern Albanian town of Sarande. I’m pretty sure this was the first meeting of Greek [...]

Can the new democracy withstand a murder investigation?
So, when Viktor Yushchenko was catapulted to power last December, there was widespread expectation that the government would finally solve the crime. After all, ex-President Kuchma appeared to have been implicated in the murder by audiotapes provided by a former guard.
Alas, it’s been 10 months since Yushchenko [...]

According to the EU Observer this morning:
“The new German government plans to use its 2007 presidency of the EU to revive the ratification of the EU constitution, according to a coalition deal struck on Friday (11 November).”
“We pledge to continue the ratification of the European constitutional treaty after the first half of 2006 and to [...]

Malcolm Gladwell tells great stories. In Blink, his latest book, he relates how the Getty Museum nearly bought an amazing forgery, why Warren Harding became US president, how to tell if a married couple will divorce and why coronary care can improve if doctors have less information.

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The FT reports this morning that France may be about to ease restrictions on certain highly regulated service industries and on business start-ups as part of a package to create jobs in poor suburbs. It is possible that these initiatives might be a test bed for broader economic reform throughout France. French finance minister, [...]

Some good news on the economic front to counter all that bad news on the social one. The French economy grew at an annualised rate of 2.8% in the third quarter of 2005 (or by 0.7% over the prebious quarter). Driving this growth: strong spending by French consumers. At this rate the French economy will [...]

Morgan Stanley’s Eric Chaney has what I consider to be a very sensitive and perceptive analysis of the economic backdrop to the French urban unrest:
Turning to economic causes, many analysts have pointed to mass youth unemployment as the main cause of the political unrest in low-income suburbs. The numbers are striking: the French [...]

“A digital divide has appeared among Europeans, with age, income and education determining whether the continent’s citizens use the Internet”, at least this is the conclusion of a new study conducted by Eurostat on behalf of the EU commission.The largest divide by educational level was found in Portugal, and the smallest in Lithuania, [...]