Dirk Niepelt

In the NZZ, Michael Schaefer reports about a study that analyzes the portfolio composition of public sector entities and social security institutions. Cantons and the Federation mostly hold cash. The SNB’s portfolio is among the riskiest.

He wants to “fix the country the right way and from the ground up.” His economic policy proposals are well known (among economists), see here. He also wants to confront North Korea and Iran.

In the FT, Mehreen Khan offers a “Greek debt dilemma cheat sheet.” Face value: EUR 321 billion, thereof EUR 248 billion owed to official creditors. Official creditors: Eurozone countries (Greek loan facility), eurozone rescue funds (EFSF and ESM), IMF, ECB. Maturity profile: IMF proposal for restructuring:

In the FT, Ralph Atkins and Thomas Hale report that senior creditors will effectively receive 90 percent of their money back. An earlier post covered the background of the bank failure.

In the NZZ, Heidi Gmür discusses some of the many forms of government support for agricultural producers in Switzerland. She lists: Direct payments: CHF 2.8 billion for 53’000 farms in 2016 (roughly CHF 50 thousand per farm). Tariffs and other protectionist measures: According to the OECD, the value for farmers of these measures amounts to CHF 2 billion annually, while the value for the country is negative (CHF -0.5 billion). Multiple tax breaks: Lower capital gains tax on land sales; no...

In the FT, Richard Waters reports about the advent of the automated company. The DAO — an acronym of decentralised autonomous organisation, the name given to such entities — has been set up to invest in other businesses, making it a form of investor-directed venture capital fund. … The organisation is governed by a set of so-called smart contracts which run on the Ethereum blockchain, a public ledger designed to make its operations transparent and enforceable. In other words, the code...

They have been increased. The illustration is taken from Finanz und Wirtschaft. Report by Hansueli Schöchli in the NZZ.

From The Economist:

The Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament wants the European Union to exert more pressure on the United States: the US should no longer serve as a “tax haven” for European tax dodgers. Proposed measures include blacklisting and a FATCA-type 30% withholding tax on EU-sourced payments. From the executive summary of the report commissioned by the group: Two global transparency initiatives are underway that could help tackle financial crimes including tax evasion, money laundering and...

Finanz und Wirtschaft, April 30, 2016. PDF. Ökonomenstimme, May 6, 2016. HTML. The winners and losers of the current monetary environment are not that easy to identify. Investors holding long-term, non-indexed debt gain as unexpectedly low inflation shifts wealth from borrowers to lenders. Governments suffer from increased real debt burdens and reduced revenue due to effectively lower capital income tax rates. Policies that succeed in affecting the real exchange rate entail...