Category Archives: Economic Concepts

Where you can find me these days

Posted on June 13, 2019 by fmpdea

As expected, I have moved to fresher pastures. I have been the Economics Editor at sister publications NordSIP and Ekonamik since the beginning of January 2019 and want to invite you to check out our content. Both publications are focused … Continue reading →

Posted in A € for your Thoughts, Aides Memoire, Banking, Blog Maintenance, Brazil, China, Current Events, ECB, Economic Concepts, Euro-zone Update, European Integration, European Interdependences, European National Politics, Finance, History, Indicators, Inflation, Media Coverage, News Round up & Comment, Political Concepts, Risk Scenario Analysis, Sovereign debt Crisis, UK, USA, Visions of the Political Future of Europe, Week Ahead, Weekly Bond Yield developments in the Euro Area, World Affairs | Leave a comment

Germany’s Credit Fuelled Growth – Facts and Incomplete Recommendations

Posted on December 5, 2014 by fmpdea

Some time ago, I came across this European Voice article by Adair Turner, senior fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking and at the centre for financial studies in Frankfurt. He argues that German growth has been fuelled by foreign … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Concepts, European History, European Integration, Sovereign debt Crisis, Uncategorized, Visions of the Political Future of Europe | Tagged 1923, Adair Turner, Competitive Devaluation, current account, Debt Monetisation, ECB, Euro-Zone Crisis Management, Euro-Zone exit, George Soros, Germany, Germany's credit-fuelled growth, Hyper-inflation, Leverage, Moral Hazard, Optimum Currency Area, Ruhr, Savings, Seignoriage, Unit Labour Costs, Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe | Leave a comment

Challenges and the Future of Africa – What insights for Europe?

Posted on October 24, 2014 by fmpdea

On Wednesday, October 8th 2014, I was among the audience of the Wincott Lecture (hosted by the eponymous Foundation at Local Government House in London) given by Professor Sir Paul Collier, author of “The Bottom Billion – Why the poorest … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Concepts, European Integration, European Interdependences, European National Politics, Political Concepts, Uncategorized, Visions of the Political Future of Europe | Tagged Africa, Challenges for Africa, Corruption, cultural subsidiarity, Economic policies, economic subsidiarity, Europe, How Sociology links with Economics and Politics, Identity, Industrial Policy, Institutions, Narratives, Norms, Paul Collier, predation, Sociology, the tension between cultural and economic subsidiarity | Leave a comment

Economic Growth and Military Expenditure: R&D, Consumption, Capture – What Future for Europe?

Posted on April 24, 2014 by fmpdea

Before anything else, I want to start by acknowledging the fact that the focus of this article represents a relatively narrow section of what is an enormously interesting, fertile and relevant field of economics with much to contribute to societal welfare and … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Concepts, European History, European Integration, Political Concepts, Visions of the Political Future of Europe | Tagged Acemoglu et al. (2010), Atomic energy, Barro and Redlick (2011), Bionics, CERN, CFSP, China, Computers, Economies of Scale, European Military Integration, Exoskeletons, Fiscal Multipliers, France, Funding Government Spending, Germany, Ilzetzki et al (2010), Internet, Military Capture, Military coups, Military R&D, Missiles, Patents, Quantum Computing, R&D and Economic Growth, Research and Development, Returns to scale, Robotics, Ruttan (2006), Touchscreens, USA, World Wide Web, WWW | Leave a comment

Some Comments on the USA’s ISA

Posted on December 21, 2012 by fmpdea

In a recent post discussing the Euro-Zone’s TARGET2, I made some reference to the equivalent clearing and settlement system in the USA without any depth because it was beyond the purview of that post. To address that gap, I dedicate … Continue reading →

Posted in Banking, Economic Concepts, USA | Tagged Imbalances, Interdistrict Settlement Account (ISA) procedures of the Federal Reserve System, ISA, Richmond, San Francisco, SOMA, System of Open Market Account, Target2, tgt2, USA Federal Reserve System | Leave a comment

A Brief Review of the Eurosystem’s TARGET2 Imbalances

Posted on November 5, 2012 by fmpdea

This post is a long overdue look at the infamous TARGET2 (im)balances, which are yet another symptom of the ongoing malaise in the Euro-Zone. I do not claim to make any new contribution in this post, whose motivation was exclusively … Continue reading →

Posted in Aides Memoire, Banking, ECB, Economic Concepts, Finance, Indicators, Inflation | Tagged Accounting, Assets, Balance of Payments, Banking Union, Banks, Buiter, Capital Flight, Central Banks, Clearing, Core, Corporates, Current Account Deficits, Deposit Facility, Deposit Flight, ECB, ECB Longer Term Refinancing Operations, ECB's Main Refinancing Operations, Equity, Euro, Euro-zone, Euro-Zone Banking Union, Eurosystem, Foreign deposit flight, Former Soviet Union Republic, Former Soviet Union Republics, FSURs, Germany, Households, ISA, Koning, Liabilities, LTRO, MRO, OMTs, Outright Monetary Transactions, overdrafts, Periphery, Ruble-Zone, Seignioreage, Settlements, Sinn, SOMA, Spain, Target2, TARGET2 imbalances | 5 Comments

Moral Hazard: Labour Market & Insurance

Posted on September 4, 2012 by fmpdea

“Moral Hazard” is a very fashionable concept that has been thrown around a lot since 2007/08 as a result of bad practices by bankers. It is also a common place in discussions of central Bank’s intervention, the Debt Monetisation risks … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Concepts, Uncategorized | Tagged Moral Hazard, Moral Hazard and Insurance Contracts, Moral Hazard and Monitoring, Principal-Agent, What is Moral Hazard | 1 Comment

Balassa-Samuelson Effect

Posted on July 28, 2012 by fmpdea

This post considers the famous and somewhat contentious issue of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), and the deviations from it explained by what is known as the Balassa-Samuelson Effect. In doing so it is hoped it will facilitate the understanding of … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Concepts, Inflation, Uncategorized | Tagged Baldwin, Buiter, Catching Up, Causes of High Price Levels, Drivers of Inflation, Exchange Rates, Inflation, Nominal Exchange Rates, PPP, Price Level, Purchasing Power Parity, Real Exchange Rates, RER, Wyplosz | 1 Comment

On Banking Unions – Concepts, their Status, Proposals & Examples

Posted on June 29, 2012 by fmpdea

The point of this post is to summarise existing information about banking unions. This is a very vague term that incorporates several concepts. Therefore clarifying this seems quite timely, in light of ongoing discussions. This is briefly described in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Banking, Economic Concepts, European Integration | Tagged Bank Insolvency Resolution and Restructure System, Bank Insolvency Resolution System, Bank Insolvency Restructure System, BIS, Deposit Guarantee Schemes, Deposit Guarantee Schemes (DGS), DGS, ECB, EU legislation, European Banking Union, European Commission, European Union, Existing EU legislation, Financial markets, Financial Supervision, Germany, IMF, MRO Cut, Nowotny, Praet, Proposed EU legislation, Single Market, UK Parliament, World Bank | Leave a comment

On International Political Economy Equilibria – Introductory thoughts, Constraints and some Intuition

Posted on June 27, 2012 by fmpdea

Analysts, particularly economists, like to think of the world as a system moving towards and around “stable equilibria”. While this is not necessarily always true and a lot of systems do behave as a random walk, the relative usefulness of equilibrum … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Concepts, European Integration, European Interdependences, Sovereign debt Crisis, World Affairs | Tagged Dani Rodrik, Dual Equilibria, Euro-Zone Sovereign Debt Crisis, Fixed Exchange Rates, Free Capital Flow, Friedman, Globalisation, Hauptmeier Mittermaier and Rincke (2009), Impossible trinity, Independent Monetary Policy, International Economics, International Political Economy, International Political Equilibria, Mass Democratic Competition, Multiple Equilibria, Mundell-Flemming, Nation State, Overall Equilibria, Overlapping Equilibria, Rodrik, Trilemma | Leave a comment