This post looks at the case for allowing the international bondholders of Irish banks to get away scot-free from their responsibilities as lenders and finds it wanting. It outlines the two great excuses that have emerged since the “Great Financial Crisis”, one by borrowers and the other by lenders. Neither rings true in the case of Ireland, a microcosm of the global finance environment over the past ten years. Irish banks stand in the middle of a sandwich between Irish households and international bondholders. Each must pay their price, including bondholders.
18 Jan 11
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This post reviews the latest IMF data on global economic growth to 2015 and puts it in the context of what has happened since 1980. In real terms, the global economy will reach $100 trillion by 2015, more than three times its 1980 level. What might surprise Westerners, however, is that the pace of economic growth will actually be faster in the period 2008-2015 than the 1980s, 1990s or pre-Recession 2000s. This is because while growth is slowing in the West, which now contributes to the list of world’s slowest growing economies like never before, it’s accelerating across Asia and Africa.
22 Dec 10
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Two very important reports were released last week, highlighting Ireland’s strong international competitiveness. The first was the World Bank Doing Business rankings for 2011, where Ireland ranked 9th in the world. The second was the IBM Global Investment Trends report, which highlighted Ireland as the top location for FDI jobs on the planet in 2009. This pipeline remains strong, and the post highlights 12 announcements over the past month that are creating 1,200 jobs around Ireland.
09 Nov 10
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Last month, the OECD published its latest Economic Outlook, which downgraded expectations for rich-country growth this year. This post digs a little deeper into the OECD database and compares how the private and public sectors have changed over the past three years. It finds that the private sector is paying more to get less in most countries – except the US, Japan and Ireland. It also finds an effective stimulus in the OECD of about 6% of GDP in 2010, compared to 2007. This is largest and – as spending-led – perhaps least sustainable in Ireland and in Denmark.
12 Oct 10
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“Light touch” regulation is now seen as one of the primary contributors to the recent global recession. This post makes the case for true “light touch” regulation – as opposed to simply bad legislation – and warns that this distinction should not be forgotten, as governments attempt to learn from the recession. Not only is light touch not part of the problem, it’s a key part of the solution, if EU estimates of a stimulus of €150bn from reducing red-tape by 25% are anything to go by.
07 Sep 10
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This post uses the latest IMF World Economic Outlook to examine which countries have been affected most by the recession. Looking at 2010-2013 growth rates, it breaks the recession’s impact down into two periods, the initial economic crisis and the subsequent rebound over the past 12 months. It finds that the recent recovery is very broadly based.
27 Jul 10
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With the 2010 World Cup down to the last sixteen, what would a World Cup of economics look like? How would the sixteen countries that are left fare, if they were competing on economic factors, not football ones? This post presents the Last 16 with a twist – each match is decided by a country’s economic defence, midfield and attack.
28 Jun 10
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With all the investment banks getting in on the act, here’s another shameless attempt to cash in on the World Cup. When will Ronaldo dive? What can behavioural economics tell us about this? After a quick poll, to profile Ronaldo, this post looks at three schools of thought in economics that might reveal something about when Ronaldo will dive: how people are biased to the present, how people value fairness and how people dislike ambiguity.
22 Jun 10
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This post examines the latest OECD data, to see which economies have been most affected by “lost trade” during the Great Recession, especially as it is being rewritten in the light of eurozone/PIIGS crisis. It turns out that the nature of the exporting sector, and not the government’s finances, has determined a country’s trading success since 2008, with drug-exporting Ireland and Switzerland among the least affected, while Finland (ICT) and Japan (cars) find themselves among the most affected.
01 Jun 10
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This post examines the so-called “web of debt” across the EU, a graphic published in a recent New York Times article. By using gross debt statistics, and regardless of the borrower’s sector, the chart misses the obvious point that the markets are worried primarily about government debt. Indeed, the logic of the chart forces the authors into almost the completely wrong conclusion about the UK!
11 May 10
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