Really I realise I have been remiss in another important sense. I have long assumed that in fact the decision to reduce deficits was taken due to the coming fiscal pressure from ageing. This certainly was the background to the discussion. However now I look at the details of the SPG this area is not [...]

The expression ‘global imbalances’ has become somewhat fashionable of late. But what exactly are these imbalances, and why are they important. The IMF in its most recent World Economic Outlook draws attention to two of them:
The (current) expansion has become less balanced. Growth has been stronger than expected in the United States, where the ?soft [...]

There is a curious combination of expectations right now. The euro is rising, principally because of preoccupations about the US trade deficit and the associated sustainability issues, but also because there seem to be signs of a slightly better collective performance later in the year. This assessment may well be accurate. So what this means [...]

One of the few real IMF success stories, the Turkish economy continues with what Serhan Cevik calls its spectacular normality:
The Turkish economy is now in its fourth year of uninterrupted growth, with an average real GDP growth rate of 7.5% per annum. Indeed, the trend growth rate surged from 3.9% in the 1990s to [...]

Well Sweden has just put the cat among the pigeons. Taking advantage of its ability to apply an independent monetary policy, the Riksbank has decided to cut its base lending rate from 2.0% to 1.5%. The reason why is not hard to discern, apart from the reduced growth forecast for this year, the inflation [...]

One person who could rightly claim to know more about global ageing and its possible consequences than anyone else in the business is the German Director of the Manheim Research Institute for the Economics of Ageing Axel B?rsch-Supan. If there’s a conference being organised, he seems to be there. Actually his comments at both [...]

Last Friday Eurostat released the 2004 data on comparative per capita PPP’s (purchasing power parities) across the EU. Perhaps the most surprising fact which emerges is that Ireland is now in second place (after Luzembourg) with a PPP 40% above the EU average. For a country that not so long ago was considered one of [...]

This is a very convenient moment to put up this post. Alan Greenspan has just admitted that he’s human like the rest of us, and that he doesn’t have a very good explanation for why long-term interest rates have been falling at a time when he and his Fed colleagues have been busy raising [...]

But in this case the vote would be about Italy’s continuing membership of the euro-zone, rather than the EU constitution. Now before going any further, I feel the need to advise extreme caution in the face of such developments.
In the first place the call comes from the Italian Labor Minister - and member of the [...]

In some ways I think this story may run and run over the months to come. Bloomberg have an update on their earlier article. According to the latest account:
1/. The German Finance Ministry have declined to comment on the Stern report that discussions took place last week between Finance Minister Hans Eichel, Bundesbank President Axel [...]