Tag Archives: Europe

Pound weakness underlines the Conservative Party failing to secure the expected Brexit mandate. Exit polls from the UK general election point to the Conservatives winning just 316 seats, down from their pre-election 330 seats. The Labour Party could win 265 seats, up from 231 before the election....

US imports rose 9% year-over-year (NSA) in March 2017, after being flat in February and up 12% in January. For the quarter overall, imports rose 7.3%, a rate that is slightly more than the 2013-14 comparison. The difference, however, is simply the price of oil. Removing petroleum, imports rose instead 6.3% in March and just 4% for the first quarter overall. The value of inbound crude oil expanded by more than 70% for...

France chooses the centrist path forward. With Emmanuel Macron, the French have elected an outspoken defender of European integration. The result is positive for both Europe and markets. French voters have elected Emmanuel Macron as their next president. With more than 65 percent of the vote, Mr....

On VoxEU, Peter Lindert summarizes his recent work on long-term international comparisons of living standards. Lindert compares nominal incomes per capita, deflated by historical prices (for staple goods). He makes five points: The real income gap between Northwest Europe and the major Asian countries was greater since the 1500s than even Maddison had estimated. Contrary to all previous estimates, Mughal India around 1600 was already far behind both Japan and Northwest Europe. Within...

Summary: Pence and Ross may “feel out” Abe for interest in a bilateral trade agreement. The US enjoys a small trade surplus with countries it has free-trade agreements. Ownership-based framework of the current account and value-added trade suggest the US trade imbalance is not a significant problem. US Vice President Pence and Commerce Secretary Ross will go to Japan this week. In addition to regional...

Bundesrepublik Deutscheland Finanzagentur GmbH (German Finance Agency) was created on September 19, 2000, in order to manage the German government’s short run liquidity needs. GFA took over the task after three separate agencies (Federal Ministry of Finance, Federal Securities Administration, and Deutsche Bundesbank) had previously shared responsibility for it. On September 17, 2014, almost exactly fourteen years...

Why did Mario Draghi appeal to NIRP in June 2014? After all, expectations at the time were for a strengthening recovery not just in Europe but all over the world. There were some concerns lingering over currency “irregularities” in 2013 but primarily related to EM’s and not the EU which had emerged from re-recession. The consensus at that time was full recovery not additional “stimulus.” From Bloomberg in January...

For the first time in 57 months, a span of nearly five years, the Fed’s preferred metric for US consumer price inflation reached the central bank’s explicit 2% target level. The PCE Deflator index was 2.12% higher in February 2017 than February 2016. Though rhetoric surrounding this result is often heated, the actual indicated inflation is decidedly not despite breaking above for once. In many ways 2.12% is hugely...

Summary: Many who think that the US is becoming isolationist are wrong. The thrust is now more about unilateralism. Unilateralism can lead to the US being more isolated. Domestic issues have dominated the news of the first 50 days of the Trump Administration. With the German Chancellor’s trip to Washington tomorrow, Secretary of State Tillerson in Asia, and the G20 meeting, foreign affairs may knock the debate...

Summary: Populism-Nationalism is not sweeping the world. The populist-nationalist party in the Netherlands will most likely not be a member of the next govt. There is little appetite for a referendum on EU. Nexit may be a clever slogan, but is highly improbable. The conventional narrative is that a wave of populism-nationalism is a sweep in the US and Europe. This is not as obviously true as many seem to...