As Manuel points out in the accompanying post, Romano Prodi’s resignation as Italy’s Prime Minister is a rather sudden and dramatic, but scarcely unexpected, development. The immediate political crisis may be resolved as rapidly as it appeared, but again as Manuel indicates it may only serve as a prelude for further things to come, and [...]

I am very happy to be back here at AFOE, if not only, for a brief one-stop guest post about the economics of the German VAT hike and more specifically how market commentators and analists might just be reading the German economy somewhat falsely at the moment in the sense that they are not taking [...]

When scientific paradigms collide everyone should duck, at least that is the best advice I can offer at the present moment. The provisional German retail sales for January are now in, and they don’t make especially pleasant reading:
“European retail sales dropped for the first time in 10 months in January as spending in Germany [...]

Sargasso, Dutch weblog and co-nominee in the recent BOB’s has a very interesting post on European energy policy, which prompted me to address the issue here as well. The point of my own post here on AFOE is not to elaborate extensively on European energy policy, I simply do not have the time right [...]

It was only just over two weeks ago (two weeks, which following the logic of a historical time which seems far from uniform, now seem like half a lifetime) that guest poster P. O’Neill, said this:
For understandable reasons — the addition of 10, and soon to be 12, new member countries, and the constitutional crisis, [...]

In comments here, Edward has addressed a question I was also thinking about this morning. He writes, “So the new coalition’s ‘play’ will be to try and really push-start domestic consumption in 2006. Obviously they hope some consumption will be brought forward in order to avoid the tax.”
Tax and a positive contribution from the ECB [...]

First off, Dave at MacroBlog has a good summary of the core of the economic policy programme adopted by the new German government. He also has some to-the-point comments about ECB credibility issues
But the big news today must surely be the surprising state of the European consumer . Perhaps the most indicative reading on the [...]

Brad Setser has a post today on Kate Moss, not provoked by her evidently economically intriguing modelling properties, but due to the Kate-Moss-thin credit-spreads which Bloomberg’s William Pesek refers to in this article. What really turns Pesek on it turns out isn’t Kate Moss at all but the possible existence of links between [...]

Thanks mainly to indirect encouragement from commenter Teme, I am continuing to plough the Finland furrow. Today I found this very interesting piece of research:
ARE SLUMPS REALLY DRY SEASONS?
This paper explores the connection between alcohol mortality, drinking behaviour and macroeconomic fluctuations in Finland by using both aggregate and micro-level data during the past few decades. [...]

Now just remember, you read about it first on Afoe. Bertrand Benoit and David Pilling have an excellent article in the FT today:
Question: Which of the world’s biggest economies is holding an early election this month dominated by debate over radical economic reforms?
Two clues: The economy, long in the doldrums, is showing signs of [...]