It’s official: Europe has double-dipped. The 17-country euro zone has fallen into its second recession since 2008, as figures released on Nov. 15 showed gross domestic product declining 0.1 percent during the third quarter. That followed a 0.2 percent contraction during the previous three months, according to the European Union’s statistics office. There were some […]
Europe’s politicians nowadays are desperately looking for someone to blame for the euro crisis. Germany blames France, and vice versa. Even lawyers are getting into the act, trying to identify legal responsibility for the monetary union’s design flaws. Meanwhile, as the crisis has deepened, a new consensus about Europe’s monetary union has emerged. The euro, according […]
It came after a night of rain, tear gas and clashes. But after four months of tortuous negotiations and a rancorous parliamentary debate, the Greek parliament finally announced late on Wednesday night that it had passed the most draconian package yet of austerity measures needed to keep Europe‘s weakest economy afloat. Following heady scenes inside and […]
Multitasking is not exactly the strong point of Europe’s current generation of leaders. They have rightly given the eurozone crisis – the central question bearing on the European Union’s future – top priority. But all other important issues – above all, a common foreign and security policy – have been almost completely ignored. And it […]
Predictions of the date may differ, but the general consensus on Japan remains the same. In a matter of just three to 10 years, the world’s third-biggest economy may start running out of the savings needed to fund its massive public debt. Is it time to start selling yen, or are the doomsayers off target […]
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke tried to refute arguments the U.S. central bank’s record stimulus is causing destabilizing flows of capital to emerging-market economies. “It is not at all clear that accommodative policies in advanced economies impose net costs on emerging market economies,” Bernanke said today in prepared remarks for a seminar in Tokyo on the last day of […]
With the euro in crisis, Germany has come to seem like a lone island of fiscal stability in Europe. Its debt levels are modest, its government bonds are safe havens for investors around the world, and it has avoided the kinds of private credit booms and housing bubbles that have destabilized the rest of the […]
There is a parallel between the ongoing euro crisis and the international banking crisis of 1982. Back then, the International Monetary Fund saved the global banking system by lending just enough money to heavily indebted countries; default was avoided, but at the cost of a lasting depression. Latin America suffered a lost decade, writes George […]
looking beyond borders 