debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
The latest Eurostat flash estimate shows that at least nine EU countries are in recession, having posted negative economic growth in both the first quarter of 2012 and the last of 2012. In four of these Member States that makes three consecutive quarters of contraction and in Greece and Portugal output has been falling for [...]
What has been economically obvious for some time even to the most obtuse or ideological observer has now finally had significant political consequences. The strategy of austerity plus market-oriented so-called ‘structural’ reforms pushed through by the centre-right governments and neoliberal-dominated European policymaking institutions has failed. This was a death foretold. Like in the episode of [...]
An additional almost 200,000 Europeans were unemployed in March compared with February according to the latest Eurostat data. Of these the vast majority were in the euro area (169,000). The pace at which the labour market situation is deteriorating is, if anything, accelerating. Since March 2011, when ill-advised austerity and monetary policy tightening began to [...]
News is in that the UK is back in recession, its economy having contracted in the last quarter of 2011 and the first of this year. In fact whether output growth is a fraction above or below zero is of more symbolic than real significance – and the figures for the first quarter may subsequently [...]
Along with many others I believed that the economic and financial crisis that manifested itself in 2008 and 2009, however great the hardship it immediately caused, would usher in a more progressive politics across Europe. This proved overoptimistic, however. Instead Europe was swept by a new wave of neoliberalism that, far from being cowed by [...]
Last week I criticised Hans-Werner Sinn for, well, quite a lot of things. One of them was advocating, as the only viable solution to the challenge of limiting climate change, a “Super-Kyoto system, combining all consuming countries into a seamless demand cartel using a world-wide cap-and-trade system”, while rejecting government initiatives to limit energy consumption [...]
Paul Samuelson, the recently deceased doyen of what used to be mainstream macroeconomics, once said that God gave the economist two eyes. One for supply and one for demand. I was reminded of that quip today when within just a few minutes Eurostat sent two statistical updates that tell you if not quite all then [...]
I have just learned that Hans-Werner Sinn has taken on even weightier subjects than rescuing the euro area from its crisis. Back in 2007 Germany’s best-known economist wrote articles on saving not just Europeans but the whole of humanity, namely from climate change; these thoughts have now just appeared in book form in English under [...]
Its great to hear good ideas about how to resolve the euro area crisis, I just wish people would reflect or research a little before they describe them as ‘new’. Mark Schieritz at Herdentrieb, with a nudge from Sebastian Dullien, has spotted a way to bring about a competitive rebalancing of the euro area without [...]
News is in that Facebook, the social networking website, is to spend USD 1 bn buying Instagram, and I am asking myself some questions and not liking the answers. Q: What does Instagram produce? A: Filters and effects that users can apply to pictures before sending them on to their social networks. Q: OK, [...]
The recent joint economic forecast by the IMK, WiFO and OFCE is now available in English (see the link on the right; auf deutsch hier). I should warn you: it makes miserable reading. While the extraordinary measures by the ECB and the shoring up of the European bail-out fund have averted a meltdown, the institutes [...]
I am working on a paper about greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Europe (hopefully there will be a post after Easter), so I suppose that colours the way I see this interesting chart posted by The Economist. I really think the EU should take emissions-reduction seriously (indeed that is the point of my piece). We [...]
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