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A tale of two depressions: What do the new data tell us? February 2010 update
This column updates the original Vox columns by Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O’Rourke comparing today’s global crisis to the Great Depression. The three previous columns have shattered all Vox readership records with over 450,000 views. This latest edition covers up to February 2010 showing that, while there is cause for optimism, there is no room for complacency.
Educated in America: College graduates and high school dropouts
Official statistics for US high school graduation rates mask a growing educational divide. This column presents research showing that a record number of Americans are going to university – while an increasing number are dropping out of high school. This poses major social challenges for the United States.
Eurozone breakup would trigger the mother of all financial crises
Originally posted 17 November 2007, this Vox column is more relevant than ever arguing that adopting the euro is effectively irreversible. Leaving would require lengthy preparations, which, given the anticipated devaluation, would trigger the mother of all financial crises. National households and firms would shift deposits to other Eurozone banks producing a system-wide bank run. Investors, trying to escape, would create a bond-market crisis. Here is what the train wreck would look like.
Panic-driven austerity in the Eurozone and its implications
Eurozone policy seems driven by market sentiment. This column argues that fear and panic led to excessive, and possibly self-defeating, austerity in the south while failing to induce offsetting stimulus in the north. The resulting deflation bias produced the double-dip recession and perhaps more dire consequences. As it becomes obvious that austerity produces unnecessary suffering, millions may seek liberation from ‘euro shackles’.
Debt, deleveraging, and the liquidity trap: A new model
Debt is the crux of advanced economies’ current policy debates. Some argue for fiscal expansion to avoid recession and deflation. Others claim that you can’t solve a debt-created problem with more debt. This column explains the core logic of a new model by Eggertsson and Krugman in which debt shocks and policy reactions can be examined. Relying on heterogeneous agents, the model naturally produces the paradox of thrift but also finds new supply-side paradoxes, those of toil and flexibility. The model suggests that most economists have been misthinking the issues and that actual policy in the US and EU is misguided.
Are Germans really poorer than Spaniards, Italians and Greeks?
A recent ECB household-wealth survey was interpreted by the media as evidence that poor Germans shouldn’t have to pay for southern Europe. This column takes a look at the numbers. Whilst it’s true that median German households are poor compared to their southern European counterparts, Germany itself is wealthy. Importantly, this wealth is very unequally distributed, but the issue of unequal distribution doesn’t feature much in the press. The debate in Germany creates an inaccurate perception among less wealthy Germans that transfers are unfair.
Five decades of evidence on financial crisis and recession: How long? How deep?
The house and equity price busts on top of a credit crunch make this an unprecedented crisis for the modern US economy; its real economy effects are thus difficult to assess. This column provides insights based on evidence from 122 recessions in 21 advanced nations since 1960. Findings suggest recessions in such circumstances are much costlier and slightly longer. But the outcome can be affected by policy, and it’s high time that policymakers act swiftly and decisively.
Trade and inequality, revisited
It’s no longer safe to assert that trade’s impact on the income distribution in wealthy countries is fairly minor. There’s a good case that it is big, and getting bigger. I’m not endorsing protectionism, but free-traders need better answers to the anxieties of globalisation’s losers.
Subprime 'crisis': FAQs (revised & updated)
A revised and updated version of the 13 August column on the basic how's and why's of what the Fed has been doing to calm financial markets.
Slave trade and African underdevelopment
Slavery, according to historical accounts, played an important role in Africa’s underdevelopment. It fostered ethnic fractionalisation and undermined effective states. The largest numbers of slaves were taken from areas that were the most underdeveloped politically at the end of the 19th century and are the most ethnically fragmented today. Recent research suggests that without the slave trades, 72% of Africa’s income gap with the rest of the world would not exist today.
Subprime crisis: causes, consequences and cures
We may just have started to feel the pain. Asset price drops – including housing – are common markers in all the big banking crises over the past 30 years. GDP declines after such crises were both large (-2% on average) and protracted (2 years to return to trend); in the 5 biggest crises, the numbers were -5% and 3 years. This column, based on the author’s testimony to the Congress, picks through the causes and consequences. It argues that when it comes to ‘cures,’ it would be far better to get the job done right than get the job done quickly.
The euro could surpass the dollar within ten years
One of the world’s leading international economists explains how the euro could surpass the dollar as the premier international currency and examines the geopolitical implications of such a shift.
Rescuing our jobs and savings: What G7/8 leaders can do to solve the global credit crisis
Without rapid and coordinated action by G7/8 leaders, this financial crisis could turn into a jobs crisis, a pension crisis and much more. This column introduces a collection of essays by leading economists on what the G7/8 leaders should do this weekend. The dozen essays present a remarkable consensus on a few points: we need immediate, coordinated global action that includes recapitalisation of the banks.
Why was the Industrial Revolution British?
It is still not clear among economic historians why the Industrial Revolution actually took place in 18th century Britain. This column explains that it is the British Empire’s success in international trade that created Britain’s high wage, cheap energy economy, and it was the spring board for the Industrial Revolution.
Subprime ‘crisis’: FAQs
Here are the basic how's and why's of what the Fed has been doing to calm financial markets.
How bad could the crisis get? Lessons from Iceland
Iceland’s banking system is ruined. GDP is down 65% in euro terms. Many companies face bankruptcy; others think of moving abroad. A third of the population is considering emigration. The British and Dutch governments demand compensation, amounting to over 100% of Icelandic GDP, for their citizens who held high-interest deposits in local branches of Icelandic banks. Europe’s leaders urgently need to take step to prevent similar things from happening to small nations with big banking sectors.
Krugman’s view on the dollar
As the dollar has started to slide, the question is: how far, how fast? This column, which is based on Paul Krugman’s recent Economic Policy article suggests the answers are: pretty far and pretty fast.
Good news at last? The recession will be over sooner than you think
A key source of the today’s economic weakness is uncertainty that led firms to postpone investment and hiring decisions. This column, by the authors whose model forecast the recession as far back as June 2008, report that the key measures of uncertainty have dropped so rapidly that they believe growth will resume by mid-2009. This means any additional economic stimulus has to be enacted quickly. Delaying to the summer may mean the economic medicine is administered just as the patient is leave the hospital.
Iceland’s banking collapse: Predicable end and lessons for other vulnerable nations
In the first half of 2008, Buiter and Sibert were invited to study Iceland’s financial problems. They identified the “vulnerable quartet” of (1) a small country with (2) a large banking sector, (3) its own currency and (4) limited fiscal capacity – a quartet that meant Iceland’s banking model was not viable. How right they were. This column summarises the report, which is now available as CEPR Policy Insight No. 26 with an October 2008 update.
Mother of all bailouts and what it means for Europe
The radical moves in the US have direct implications for European banks and indirect implications for European governments. This column discusses the likely channels and notes that several European banks are both too big to fail and may be too big to be saved by their national governments alone.
Open Letter to European leaders on Europe’s banking crisis: A call to action
This is a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. Trust among financial institutions is disappearing; fear may spread. Last week’s US experience showed that saving one bank at a time won’t work. A systemic response is needed and in Europe this means an EU-led initiative to recapitalise the banking sector. Unless European leaders immediately unite to address this crisis before it spirals out of control, they may find themselves fighting over how best to salvage the aftermath.
The protectionist temptation: Lessons from the Great Depression for today
What do we know about the spread of protectionism during the Great Depression and what are the implications for today’s crisis? This column says the lesson is that countries should coordinate their fiscal and monetary measures. If some do and some don’t, the trade policy consequences could once again be most unfortunate.
Economic crisis in Europe: Cause, consequences, and responses
The European economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. This column says that swift policy response avoided a financial meltdown, but turning the ongoing recovery into sustained growth requires action on five challenges: boosting potential output, enhancing labour market flexibility, preparing fiscal consolidation, facilitating intra-EU adjustment, and unwinding global imbalances. Europe also needs an improved crisis-management framework, lest this happen again.
Is the LIBOR-OIS spread due to predatory behaviour?
Editor's Note: Originally posted 2 June 2008.
There has been a persistent spread between the rate at which banks lend each other money and government-backed securities yields in recent months. This column describes hypotheses explaining the spread – including the possibility that banks aren’t lending in order to bankrupt acquisition targets.
The effectiveness of fiscal and monetary stimulus in depressions
There is one important source of information on the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal stimulus in an environment of near-zero interest rates, dysfunctional banking systems and heightened risk aversion that has not been fully exploited: the 1930s. This column gathers data on growth, budgets and central bank policy rates for 27 countries covering the period 1925-39 and shows that where fiscal policy was tried, it was effective.
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- Everything the IMF wanted to know about financial regulation and wasn’t afraid to askBair
- Rethinking macroeconomic policy: Getting granularBlanchard, Dell'Ariccia, Mauro
- A tale of two depressions: What do the new data tell us? February 2010 updateEichengreen, O’Rourke
- Educated in America: College graduates and high school dropoutsHeckman, LaFontaine
- Eurozone breakup would trigger the mother of all financial crisesEichengreen
- Panic-driven austerity in the Eurozone and its implicationsDe Grauwe, Ji
- Debt, deleveraging, and the liquidity trap: A new modelKrugman
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