The large victory of the Syriza party in Greece, with Tsipras just one seat below absolute majority (see Table 1 below) raises the questions :”What will happen now in the Eurozone? Is a Grexit scenario possible?”My take here is that not much is likely to happen, except some tough bargain between the new government and […]
Senza categoria
European Fiscal Policy in 3D
I have discussed here the “new” guidelines on the Stability and growth pact (SGP) issued on January 13 by the European Commission. As many economist, I really enjoy “seeing” things on a graph. So here is the “new” SGP in 3D . On the vertical axis I plot the fraction of GDP a country will […]
The EU new fiscal flexibility guidelines: an assessment
On January 13, the European Commission issued new guidelines, to the European Parliament, the EU Council, the ECB, the EIB, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, for “making the best use of the flexibility within the existing rules of the Stability and Growth Pact” (SGP). The report underlines that the […]
Strenna Natalizia: Che Cosa Sono i Soldi?
Per una teoria molto semplificata della moneta…Buone Feste! Da “la verità vi prego sul Danaro, AcomeA Sgr, Teatro Parenti, Ottobre 2014, con Anna Bonaiuto, Alberto Foà e Leonardo Previ.
Time to Scrap the Stability and Growth Pact
My piece on the EZ fiscal framework on Voxeu.org is here
The EU Fiscal Framework: The Proof of the Pudding
I have been invited to participate to a round table organized by Bruegel , the Brussels based think-tank, assessing the Fiscal framework in the Eurozone in the present crisis (the complete program is here). In brief, I made the following four points (slides are here). 1) Since 2009 there was an unprecedented fiscal consolidation in […]
Monetary Policy Mistakes
Nice graph from roubini.com on rather bizarre policy rate adjustments….
Legge di Stabilità: il Mistero dei 18 Miliardi
Non sono riuscito a trovare la bozza della legge di stabilità in discussione, ma da quanto riportato dalla stampa (le famose slides del primo ministro) ad esempio dal Sole 24, emerge un quadro diverso da quello che compare nei titoli (meno 18 miliardi di imposte, tagli di spesa per 15 miliardi). La riduzione di imposte […]
TFR in busta paga?
La proposta di anticipare il TFR (trattamento di fine rapporto) nella busta paga al fine di stimolare i consumi mi lascia molto perplesso. Si tratta di spostare redditi dal futuro al presente e sappiamo che questo fatto accresce i consumi solamente per quelle famiglie che vorrebbero indebitarsi per consumare ma non hanno accesso al mercato […]
Gordon Is Back
Gordon Brown , the British Chancellor of the Exchequer (Economy Minister) from 1997 to 2007 who succeeded Tony Blair as UK Prime Minister in 2007 until 2010, made an impressive comeback in the British political arena on the Scottish debate. Here is an effective speach delivered yesterday
Nemo propheta in patria
This month is no exception: this blog’s views from the US are about 6.5 times those from Italy (I wonder the interests from Ukraine)… Visualizzazioni di pagine per paese (Page Views by Country) Stati Uniti 6047 Italia 923 Ucraina 377 Romania 280 Germania 116 Federazione Russa 112 Francia 98 Cina 68 Qatar 58 Paesi […]
Labor Productivity and Wage Allocation: Thom and I Were Right!
The EU Commission’s recent report on Monitoring progress in the Member States for Italy, on pag 2, acknowledges that “Slow productivity growth is mostly due to inefficiency in allocating resources. Indeed, Italy’s investment rate is comparable to that of other euro-area countries, but its level of capital efficiency is lower and declining.According to a recent […]
Renzi, il PIL e la crescita (e Padoan)
Sarà il riflesso condizionato di un professore di economia, ma quando ho letto su Il Sole24 di oggi il testo dell’intervento del primo ministro Renzi alla trasmissione “A porta a porta” sugli effetti della correzione Istat del PIL che includerà le spese di ricerca e sviluppo ed i proventi di attività illecite, ammetto di aver […]
Et Voilà La Déflation ! (en francais)
La déflation nouvelle est arriveé ! Comme on avéz prévu
EU Deficit Limits, Infrastructure Investments and Growth
Here is a useful reading from Andrew Warner of the IMF , for those who think that the only way to get back to growth is to soften EU deficit limits and boost public infrastructure investments . By the way, has anyone estimated the growth effects of the Italian TAV (High Speed Train) in Piedmont’s […]
The Curse of Low Interest Rates
Low nominal interest on government bonds are good news, in that they slow down the dynamics of public debt and encorage spending. Thus the recent auction of one-year government bonds (BOT) where the Italian Treasury was able to sell 7 billion worth of paper at a yield of 0.279%, down from the previous record low […]
Deflation next?
A nice paper from the St Louis Fed is making the point that, unlike the Federal Reserve’s second Quantitative Easing (QE2), Mario Draghi’s new measures, which includes the 550b Targeted Long Term Financing Operations (TLTR0), announced on May 8 and implemented on June 5, are so far failing in raising market expectations of future inflation. […]
Renzi & Acemoglu
According to Francesco Giavazzi’s editorial on today’s Corriere della Sera , the Prime Minister Renzi is getting the “reform sequence right”, first institutions, second economics, as Renzi is convinced that, “following one of the most promising research line of recent economic theory, see Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson “Why Nations Fail”, a country’s success depends […]
On the NYT
Bits of my interview on Renzi etc here with the New York Times
Se Cottarelli lascia
Nel marzo 2014, Carlo Cottarelli, commissario alla revisione della spesa nominato dal Governo Letta, annunciava un piano dettagliato di possibili tagli alla spesa pubblica. Questo piano prevedeva un preciso “crono-programma” che avrebbe dovuto produrre a settembre 2014 la presentazione di un insieme di misure per il prossimo triennio, durante il quale i risparmi avrebbero raggiunto […]